Prosopopoeia
by Faded Nights
Summary: When a magical amulet whisks her off to another dimension, Buffy doesn't expect she'll meet an avatar of the Powers that Be-and she certainly can't see any reason why he should look like Angel and insist on putting her through so many tests. B/A
1. Chapter One

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognisable indicia are copyright Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and others. No profit is made from this story.

Timeline: Post-Chosen. Will eventually join up with Angel season 5. Season 8 will not happen, but references to some of the events in it are made once in a while.

Story will eventually be wholly B/A, but there's tons of friendly Spuffy interaction until then!

Prosopopoeia – A Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic.

Part One

Chapter One

"Mission successful?" Buffy called, leaning over the upstairs railing, focused on the front door as Kennedy and two of the other new Slayers traipsed in the door, closely followed by Willow (who practically floated. There was no traipsing for Willow.)

"Buffy, please, there's really no need to shout across the house."

Giles, calling from the nearest room—the library—and demonstrating about as much shouting as she was. It was his house, though. A temporary place for them to stay while everything was set up for them to take over the castle in Scotland. They'd be moving, and soon—within the month, actually—and Buffy knew Giles was far more relieved about that than he was letting on. She couldn't really blame him. The place was absolutely overrun with Slayers.

Walking over to the library door, she poked her head in and smiled. "Oops. Right. Will try to communicate with people only directly face-to-face from now on."

"Yes, well, perhaps we should see what it is they've brought back." There was a hint of amusement in the tired lines of his face, though he didn't otherwise acknowledge the militant tone of her comment.

She turned and led the way down the stairs. The two girls who had accompanied Kennedy and Willow had disappeared, probably gone to fight over the shower, but both witch and Slayer still stood in the hall, Willow just closing the hall closet after hanging up her coat.

"So, what've you got for me?"

Buffy ignored the dark look Kennedy sent her, too used to the other girl's attitude to take any offence to it. She was willing to acknowledge that she was acting the general. She was also more than willing to argue that she had to do it, because no one else could. This fight had been hashed out months ago, even before they'd taken down the First. It didn't need to be revisited again—though that didn't mean it wasn't, and often.

Willow held up an amulet, the round object dangling from a chain wrapped twice around her hand.

"Oooh, pretty," Buffy murmured. She leaned toward it, appreciating the work that had gone into the thing. The setting was simple, white gold with an unobtrusive bezel to showcase the large, blue diamond amulet. As she leaned closer, she could just make out small shapes engraved in the face of the stone.

"It's pretty, yeah," Willow said. "But I think someone steered us way wrong on this one, Buffy. I can't feel any magic coming off of it at all. It didn't do anything when I touched it either." She jangled it as she spoke.

"Kennedy, did you try wearing it?" Giles asked. Buffy looked at him askance, and Giles raised his shoulders slightly in a shrug. "From what I've read on the Kostheshr Hekmon, it's meant to be worn by a Slayer."

"Well, not this one," Kennedy said. "Didn't do anything when I touched it."

"If it really _is_ supposed to be worn by a Slayer, it's probably not just _any_ Slayer that it's meant for. Right?" Willow asked. She looking at Giles, directing the question at him, but her eyes flickered to Buffy a couple of times as she spoke.

"Yes, well," Giles began, removing his glasses and rubbing one of the lenses on his shirt as he spoke. He replaced them on his nose, reaching out to take the amulet from Willow. "May I?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." She dropped it in his hand and Giles raised the chain so the amulet was dangling in front of his face.

"It is a very interesting artefact… You really sense nothing at all from it, Willow?"

"Not a thing, which is weird. I mean, Slayers aren't really magical so much, so maybe if it's meant only for a Slayer I wouldn't, but if that's really the amulet we were looking for, it's supposed to be this really powerful, really famously mystical object. I'd thought it would be a bit more… I don't know, magic-y."

Kennedy touched her shoulder. "Maybe the sources were wrong and we have the wrong thing. Maybe it's just some random piece of really priceless jewellery. How much does a blue diamond fetch?"

"We're not selling it," Buffy replied. "Can I try, Giles?" She extended her hand, reaching for it.

Giles jerked it backward, surprising her. "I really think we should do more research before any other Slayers put it on. Especially before you do, Buffy."

Kennedy rolled her eyes, but Buffy could only give him an exasperated half smile. "Giles. If it's really only meant for one Slayer, what're the chances that I'm her?"

"A great deal higher than you are pretending."

"Come on, Giles. Okay, let's say I _am_ the Slayer it's meant for. That'd be good anyway, right?"

"The sources are very vague concerning what the Hekmon is meant for, Buffy. There is no guarantee it is meant to be beneficial to the bearer."

Not really getting this, but starting to figure out that she hadn't been sent out to retrieve the object with Willow for a reason, Buffy stood back and crossed her arms.

"Okay, what's with the overprotective Watcher act? Did you come across something you're not telling me?"

Giles looked relieved to find her coming around, even while still being defensive about it.

"It's more the lack of anything, and…" he trailed off and looked up, Buffy following his gaze. They were attracting an audience, curious Slayers poking their heads out of doorways, hanging over the upstairs railing, and starting to gather just down the hallway, near the entrance to the kitchen. "Shall we continue this conversation somewhere more private?"

Buffy nodded shortly. "Library," she said, following Giles as he made his way back upstairs, Willow and Kennedy trailing her.

Giles closed the library door once they had all entered and he'd done a sweep to make sure none of the girls were lurking in any corners. He took an armchair close to the fire as she leaned back against the door. Willow and Kennedy were already seated in the twin chair near his, Kennedy perched on the arm while Willow sat in the chair proper.

"So, what's this about finding nothing?" Buffy asked. She couldn't even see the amulet now. Giles had put it in the pocket of his blazer as they'd made their way through the house.

"It's just as I said. There's a strange lack of truly dated references to the ancient sources on the subject. It's as though the amulet and all of the material on it merely appeared one day."

Buffy crossed her arms again. "I don't know if I'm really following this, Giles. There are old sources on this thing… but… what?" She looked at Willow, who seemed to be trying to work it out as well.

"But… oh!" A light lit in Willow's eyes. "You're saying that, even though there's writing directly about the amulet, there's nothing, no colophons or anything that refer to it other than sources directly about it." Giles nodded, and Willow frowned. "That _is_ weird."

"Isn't it possible that only a few people knew about it, so that's all we have?" Kennedy asked.

"Sure, sweetie," Willow said. "But the documents themselves should have been recorded, since they were probably in some great library somewhere or something at one point. And if they don't exist on lists anywhere, it's kinda strange."

Buffy rubbed at her eyes. "So you're suspicious because some ancient people had bad cataloguing skills? Giles, your librarian is showing."

"It isn't just the catalogues, Buffy. There is literally nothing I can find on this amulet outside of documentation entirely dedicated to it. It's as though it and all of its history simply appeared one day."

"But how's that possible?" Kennedy asked.

"I… am afraid I simply don't know. I'm worried it's a trap, though. A new enemy, perhaps."

"And you think they might be after me."

"I believe it is a distinct possibility, Buffy. How else could we be lucky enough to be in the area of the Hekmon's location when we stumbled across it in the books?"

"Giles might have a point. Weirder things have happened," Willow said, meeting Buffy's eyes.

"On a Hellmouth," she pointed out. "Is there anything in what you have that says just touching this thing might put me in danger?"

Giles hesitated, and then shook his head.

"Then I might as well try putting it on, right? Okay, so we don't know much about it, but—"

"I think it's an unnecessary risk, Buffy." Giles interrupted.

"Kennedy wore it, nothing happened to her."

Giles hesitated again, looking at the couple in the chair near him, and it dawned on Buffy that sending Kennedy out instead of her may have been an experiment of some sort—to see whether the amulet would react to any Slayer, and to see if the consequences of that would be anything tragic. She kept the thought to herself. If it hadn't crossed Kennedy and Willow's minds, she wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

"I realise you think I'm being unnecessarily cautious, Buffy, but—" he'd removed his glasses and was rubbing at the corner of his eye.

"But you're sure there's more to the amulet than you've discovered and want to find out more."

Giles replaced his glasses. "I'd thought I might look in other sources, now that I know for certain what the amulet looks like."

"Research. I can help!" Buffy said, only a moment later wondering if there had been a bit too much enthusiasm in her offer. The sceptical look Giles sent her confirmed it.

"Maybe it couldn't hurt, Giles. If the amulet's meant for Buffy, then we could learn a lot more about it by her touching it. And if it's not, then we'll have gotten past that, anyway," Willow said.

Giles' hand went to his pocket. "And if it does something harmful to Buffy? What then, Willow?"

"Hellooo? Not-deaf-Buffy standing right here. So we don't have a lot of info on this Cost-head Heckler thing—"

"Kostheshr Hekmon."

"—yeah, that. There's also nothing saying it's evil, right?"

"Everything points to the opposite, actually, that it's a tool for our side," Giles affirmed. He'd half taken the amulet from his pocket by this time, and Buffy could see the silver-y colour of the white gold chain hanging across his hand. "The writing on the diamond would probably tell us more, but I'm afraid it's in a language I've never encountered before."

Buffy held out a hand. "Gimme."

Giles sighed, but extended the amulet toward her. Buffy snatched it from his hand before he could withdraw it again. She ran her fingers over the face of the diamond, feeling the weight of the amulet in her hand.

"Look, see? Nothing to be worried about." Slipping one finger into the chain, she twirled the amulet around, letting the chain fall down around her wrist as she caught the amulet in her hand. Her eyes widened at the warmth of the stone in her hand, the sudden increase in its weight, and she let out a quick breath.

"Oh, this can't be good," she muttered, vertigo filling her and sending her toppling to one side. Dimly, she heard a chorus of her name, but it was way too far away considering how small Giles' library was, and how loud they had to be shouting.

So it came as very little surprise to her when Buffy landed hard on her side on a stone floor instead of on the library rug. She'd been falling far too long for the amulet to have _not _dragged her into some other dimension.

"Great," she muttered. "Sure, Buffy. Way to prove that not everyone is out to get you."


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Amulet still clenched in her hand despite a desire to drop it, Buffy opened her eyes and looked around, taking in what she could from this vantage point before pushing herself up into a sitting position. Eyes, ears and extended Slayer senses told her she was alone, but seeing as she had no way of knowing where she was, it seemed safer to keep herself somewhere near high alert.

Shifting and getting to her feet, Buffy cringed at a pain in her hip where she'd smacked the floor.

"Oww," she muttered, hand going to it. "Hasn't this place heard of plush carpeting?"

Another glance around at the uneven floor of the dank hall she'd landed in told her no, and also made her glad she'd landed where she had, instead of on a sharper part of the floor. The cavernous room seemed unfinished; beyond the raises and cracks in the floor were cracks in the walls, and the columns supporting the ceiling were sturdy but still little more than sheer rock. There was no ornamentation anywhere, and unless she counted the empty torch brackets on the walls, no decoration either.

A row of slit windows in one wall supplied all of the light in the room, and Buffy turned that way, taking a few steps before realising that while it was probably entirely an outside wall, there was no door in it. She surveyed the distance from the floor to the base of one of the windows, suspecting she could jump it, but doubting the windows were people-sized. Better to look for a door. After all, just because she'd been unceremoniously taken and dumped here didn't mean she was a prisoner, right?

Riiight.

At least grateful she was always prepared for really weird things to happen—okay, always prepared for a fight, at least—Buffy slid a stake out of her jacket. It was the only one she had on her, but she didn't really think she was likely to run into any vampires here anyway. No, she suspected anything she came across here was going to be a lot less prone to disintegrating when stabbed.

Amulet still clutched in her other hand, Buffy looked at it a long moment before placing the chain around her neck. It made a warm weight against her chest, a promise of home if she could just figure out how to activate it. She'd expected to feel aversion to it, not as though she couldn't go without it.

She'd worry about that later. For now, just getting out of this room sounded like a good idea.

As her initial survey of the room had failed to show her the door, Buffy started on a slow circuit. Stake held at the ready, she peered around the columns, trying to figure out which of them was hiding it. When she'd come full circle, Buffy frowned. No door. There had to be a door somewhere—though if there wasn't, it might explain why no one had ever bothered to finish this room.

Glancing up at the windows again, Buffy frowned, and then paced to that end of the room. Left hand dragging along the wall, feeling for any sort of switch her eyes might have missed, she started on a second loop of the room. As she walked, her gaze moved everywhere, even looking out for any sort of trapdoor in the floor, or ladder in the vaulted ceiling that might lead to a hatch.

Still nothing, until she approached the very last column before she reached her starting point. A deep, crude recess marred the side of it, a vertical gash in the stone about the height of her torso, and Buffy approached it with slow steps. Stake held in front of her in case anything launched out at her, she peered into it, wishing it were on the other side of the pole so that the light shone in.

"Really starting to feel like I'm being tested, here!" Buffy called, hoping for a response so that she wouldn't have to start feeling around inside the crevice.

No such luck, though.

"Here goes nothing," Buffy muttered with a bit of a sigh, shifting the stake to her other hand and cringing as she reached into the crack. She didn't feel anything at first, not even the stickiness of a spider web—which would've been nice, at least then she'd know she wasn't the only living thing here—and had to push her arm deeper in. Rough walls scraped against the back of her hand, pushing back the sleeve of her jacket as the crevice narrowed, seeming unbelievably deep even for the size of the column it was in.

Then her fingers brushed something smooth and wooden, and she flexed them to wrap them around the thing at the back of the recess. Pulling her hand back once she'd gotten purchase, Buffy yanked to get the rock to let go of the object it was hiding. Cringing, she dropped down and closed her eyes at the shower of rock that came with the release of her arm and the treasure the column had been hiding.

It was a nice, almost familiar weight in her hand, and when Buffy opened her eyes again she grinned at the elaborate, short-handled labrys she held.

"Score one for Buffy," she said, appraising it as she put away her stake. She twirled the double-headed axe a couple of times, getting used to it in her hand. Okay, so there was no door in this room, and she was going to have to figure out how to get herself and her new toy out of a window fifteen feet above her head. At least she was armed.

She didn't bother with trying to figure out how a weapon with silver and gold inlay had gotten shoved into a column in the first place.

Returning to the part of the wall she'd moved away from to check out the column, Buffy finished her circuit around the room. Still no hidden door that she could find—not that she had really expected there would be one in the last twenty feet. Windows it was.

Standing beneath them, Buffy looked up. There were five, laid out in a row that was far too even for the shoddiness of the rest of the chamber, with the centre one set a foot or two higher in the wall than the others. The rock wall beneath them has been shaved down and polished—all twenty-by-twenty square feet of it—and Buffy ran her hand along it with a sigh. Smooth as tile, not a chance of being able to find any hand or footholds and scramble up the side.

Oh, yeah. This just screamed test.

Stretching her legs, Buffy began to limber up. If she didn't make this jump the first time, it was going to hurt like hell coming back down. Not to mention that she would probably break a heel, and then she'd either have to walk around barefoot or hobbling until she found something else to protect her feet. Neither of those options sounded appealing, and she also really, really liked these shoes, so _not_ launching herself high enough to grab a window ledge just wasn't an option.

Buffy crouched and straightened a few times, getting the feel of the floor beneath her feet. There was no give at all, prompting her to look to the ceiling to see if there was something she was missing. There were no dangling ropes or anything, though. No rows of overhead bars up near the ceiling that could be accessed from elsewhere in the chamber. Nothing, except this shiny patch of rock wall and the protruding window ledges far above her head.

Sliding the handle of the axe through a back belt loop and hoping it didn't overbalance and fall out, Buffy let out a long breath and brought herself back down into a crouch.

_'Here goes nothing,' _she thought, then launched herself upward with as much force as she could muster, arms outstretched above her head.

Fingers scrambled for purchase on the ledge as it came into her reach and Buffy grunted, arms extending as gravity tried to pull her back down, her momentum sending her torso slamming into the wall as she abruptly stopped moving. The axe teetered in its flimsy fabric holster and Buffy kicked a foot back to push the head back to where it had almost been resting right against the loop, correcting the balance.

Then she pulled herself up the rest of the way, clinging to the window frame as she managed to get to her feet, looking out of the window and into the distance showed her a lot of unfamiliar geography—mountains and a forest, nothing like California, and certainly nothing like England. Looking down showed her a sheer drop; farther than it was back to the floor of the room she was in, onto rocky ground.

"Fantastic. I really did miss the door, didn't I?" she grumbled, looking back the way she'd come, trying to see if there was anything more she could see from this vantage point. Her gaze stopped on the view outside of the wider, middle window, two windows from her and slightly higher, its ledge at about the same level as her chest from where she stood now. There was a platform of some sort extending outside of the window there, and Buffy turned to look again out of the window she was standing at.

Somehow, it didn't surprise her that, despite knowing it had to be there, she couldn't see the platform from here.

Shaking her head, Buffy moved to the edge of the window ledge, bracing herself against the wall and grabbing the frame of the next window before extending one leg across the two-foot gap. She clamoured across the gap quickly, then paused as she considered the remaining distance to her goal.

The ledge of the next window—the middle one—jutted out further than on any of the others, and it was about double the width of the one she was standing on now. It was also three feet higher than where her feet were now, and still two feet away. Buffy stretched her arms to loosen them, slid the axe from her belt loop and reached forward, placing it on the next ledge and pushing it back a bit so it wouldn't be in her way. Then she grabbed the edge of the stone with both hands and stepped off of her current perch, letting herself drop, grunting when her arms were again forced to take the brunt of her weight.

Without having to balance the axe this time, pulling herself up and onto the ledge was easier. Still, she let out a little cheer when she was fully sitting on it, legs dangling over and into the chamber as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on. She'd settled on the assumption that someone was testing her—this was all way too much of a set-up for it not to be a test—but who was it? If the Watcher's Council still existed, she'd be tempted to blame them, but that seemed pretty impossible at this point.

Buffy got to her feet, axe in hand and turned, looking at the walkway that led outside from this central window. Narrow, only about three feet wide, as rough looking as the room she'd just come from, and about five stories in the air, Buffy didn't look forward to walking across it to get to the tower on the other side. Seeing as she didn't appear to have any other choice though, she started, placing her feet precisely as she made her way across, cringing a bit when the bridge narrowed, grateful there wasn't any wind because the sun was in her eyes and that was more than enough to make her wary of taking a wrong step.

The walkway turned out to be longer than it had looked, which didn't really surprise her in the least. She'd just get used to the weird optical illusions, and try trusting her other senses more than her sight. Maybe she'd find a blindfold. …okay, maybe not.

A great wooden door stood at the end and Buffy pushed on it, grimacing when it didn't move and then taking the handle more firmly in hand and shoving with more of her strength behind the movement. A great groaning noise and a crack came from the rusted over hinges, the door moving just enough for her to slip into the dark room beyond.

Hollow applause came from somewhere in front of her. Eyes still adjusting, Buffy could only make out a tall, broad form. Male, probably, and something in the back of her mind suggested there was something more than vaguely familiar about the figure.

"About twenty minutes longer than we thought it was going to take you to get out, but since you didn't leave the axe behind, you get bonus points."

Buffy froze, axe lowering slightly before she raised it again, instantly back on edge. She knew that voice. She knew that voice very, very well.

"Angel…?"


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Buffy's eyes narrowed as she surveyed the man standing in front of her. Firelight from the torches cast shadows onto the familiar planes of his face, reflecting in his eyes; eyes that had a weird glint to them, and maybe it was that more than anything else that had Buffy on edge.

He sounded like Angel, and certainly looked like Angel—down to the long leather coat and red silk shirt—but she could almost swear that it wasn't him. Or if it was him, it wasn't wholly him.

Though that didn't sound right either, because she was pretty sure she would already be bleeding if she were staring down Angelus.

"Buffy," Angel said, tone reassuring in its response to the way she'd spoken his name, but still oddly cordial.

Okay, so it was possible that she just didn't want to admit they'd grown apart. But really, how much could have changed since she'd seen him in Sunnydale a few months ago? They got along okay then, even with her lame cookie speech.

His words came back to her in a rush. Right. That was why she was pretty sure it wasn't Angel.

"'We'? What, you and the other demons that make up 'pretending to be your ex-boyfriends anonymous?'"

He gave a laugh and shot her a bemused look. "Pretending?"

"_You're_ not Angel." She pointed at him, catching sight of the amulet resting against his chest, a black diamond where hers was blue, but otherwise identical to the one that had brought her here. "And I think you have something to do with these." She tugged at her own as she spoke.

He continued with the bemused look. "Buffy, I didn't have anything to do with bringing you here. And why do you keep telling me I'm not me?"

Buffy twirled the axe in her hand, needing to limber up after holding it clenched so tightly for so long, and itching for a chance to actually get to use it on something.

"Did you miss the part where you told me you had something to do with it?" She couldn't actually use the axe on him, of course, until she figured out just who the hell he actually was.

"I said there was an expectation for how long it would take you to escape the room. I didn't say anything about being responsible for putting you in there in the first place."

"Right. Look, I'm tired of the games. I get it; you put me through some kind of test. I passed. Now, who are you and where are my ruby slippers, because I want to go home."

The bemusement turned exasperated. "Buffy…"

She crossed her arms, hand loose around the axe, which was tilted downward and resting against her leg. "We'll get through this so much faster if you tell me who you really are. _Angel_ is in L.A."

The man-who-was-so-not-Angel made a frustrated noise. "You were in Britain, and that doesn't seem to have mattered, so how does having been in L.A. have anything to do with it?"

Satisfied, Buffy smiled. Stupid enemies were the best enemies. "As far as Angel knew, I was in Rome. Gotcha. Now, I'll ask one more time: Who Are You?"

'Angel' pinched the bridge of his nose, opened his mouth, shut it, then dropped his hand. "I work for the Powers that Be."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "The Powers that Be… what? Annoying? Kidnappy? Oooh, I know, _evil?_"

He ignored her.

"You have been Chosen, Buffy Summers."

"You know, you're like eight years late with that announcement."

"Chosen _beyond_ your calling as the Slayer. The Powers that Be generally don't really care about the comings and goings of Slayers, but they've taken special interest in you."

"Uh huh. Everyone wants a piece of Buffy. Tell them to take a number and wait their turn. Or better yet, pick someone else. I can point you to some promising Slayers if you're looking for the Xena-type."

"The Powers that Be aren't—"

"Interested in Slayers. I heard you the first time. Newsflash; Slayer here."

The man crossed his arms, his frustration palpable. Had this guy really thought he could pull off pretending to be Angel? Sure, Angel had his moments, but he was way more in control than this guy—and far too used to her banter to be this fazed by it.

"You may be a Slayer, but it isn't all you are. The universe has conspired to ensure you reached this point, so that you would be free to take on the role the Powers have for you."

Buffy rolled her eyes, her gaze scanning the room. There was a door behind the fake Angel, the only exit other than the door she'd come in, and she supposed she wasn't going to be allowed to find out what was behind that door until he was done talking at her.

"So _that's_ why I've died twice. Someone wanted to make sure I lived long enough to see what happens when you finish a building but forget to put a ground-level door in it. Makes a lot of sense."

"You dying is part of what let you get this far."

"You're so not helping yourself here."

"I'm not sure what response you're looking for," he responded. He looked more than a little confused, and something in the perplexed look was reminiscent enough of the actual Angel that she sighed.

"Could you at least look like someone else?" she asked.

Fake Angel shook his head. "I'm not a shape shifter. I'm an avatar for the Powers that Be. This form was assigned, I can't change it."

"Oh, perfect," Buffy muttered. "Fine. I listen to you, I get to go home, right?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Yes or no question; requires a yes or no answer, and I think you've already figured out which of those I'm going to accept."

"Yes, you'll get to go home. The Powers don't want to keep you here, Buffy. You're just here while I train you, and then you'll be able to leave." He turned toward the door behind him and gestured for her to follow. "Let's continue this conversation downstairs."

Buffy hesitated, curious to find out what else there was to this place, but still not at all trusting this avatar-guy. She wanted to stay here, in this room that for right now felt like pretty neutral territory, but Fake Angel, apparently confident he didn't have to convince her further, had already left the room.

Sighing, she crossed to the door, looking into the spiral stairwell beyond. Only one way to go—down, into an unlit passage. Cold air blew up from around the bend and Buffy cringed, drawing back and grabbing the torch from the bracket next to the door before she made her way down.

The room the stairwell opened out to at the bottom was cosy, in a Greco-Roman sort of way. It didn't fit the dank medieval look of the tower she'd just come from, or the woodsy, mountainous view she'd seen surrounding the building, but then, who said alternate dimensions had to be geographically and historically coherent?

The avatar had taken up a seat on a long, heavy looking chaise in front of a large fireplace and Buffy made her way toward him, taking in the room as she went along. She paused, studying the mosaic that made up the wall surrounding the fireplace. Large enough that the figures on it flooded over onto both adjacent walls, one side of the mosaic was covered in dark figures, the other covered in light. The fireplace split the image in two; fiery coloured tiles made up the background and seemed to dance as they reflected light she couldn't find the source of.

"Imposing," she quipped, leaning against the back of a ladder-backed chair next to the chaise.

"It represents the balance. Neither side is stronger than the other," the avatar replied, also looking up at the image.

She continued to study it as she mulled that over. "Why is the dark side moving closer, then?"

"Things aren't balanced right now. That's why you're here." He looked at her. "You've been chosen to be a Champion for the Powers, they've just been waiting until you were ready to take on that mantle."

"I already do the fighting for good thing," Buffy reminded him.

"Do we really have to go over this again?"

Though "yes" was on the tip of her tongue, Buffy shook her head. "You said something about training me. Training me to do what, exactly?"

"Mostly honing your fighting skills, but there are some other gifts you'll be given to assist you once you go home. We'll cover them later."

"And if I say no?" she demanded, anger starting to build in her at his caginess.

"You aren't being given the option, Buffy. If the Powers want you to be a warrior for them, you're going to become a warrior for them."

"You know, it is _so_ like you to think you can make decisions for me!"

He gave a wry smile. "Not really Angel, remember?"

She bit back her next retort. Okay, so he acted more like Angel than she wanted to think. That could be okay. It either meant they would fight all the time, or get along really well—possibly too well. She just wished she knew the motive behind these Powers sending her a guy dressed up as (of all of the people in her past) _Angel_.

"I'll show you to your room. We start as soon as you've had a short rest."

-8-

Despite not sleeping for very long, dreams tormented Buffy. In the most vivid she knelt, sharp stone floor digging into her knees, unmoving as Angel—the real Angel—paced in circles around her.

He didn't speak. In fact, except for the continuous route keeping him rotating around her rather than walking into her, or through her, he gave no indication that he knew she was there at all.

"Utter stillness can hide you from any foe." The fake Angel. The timbre of his voice wasn't any different than Angel's, and often he sounded just like the _real_ Angel, but here she knew it wasn't him speaking.

She opened her mouth to speak, to reply without really knowing what she would say, then closed it abruptly as Angel paused in his pacing and looked down, actually seeing her.

"Buffy?"

She met his eyes.

"When the time comes, you can do it. You've done it already. Remember that."

Buffy narrowed her eyes, not understanding.

"Can do what? Angel?" But he was disappearing, and suddenly she was standing, her knees no longer hurting, legs no longer sore and body feeling as though she hadn't been kneeling at all.

A creak sounded behind her and Buffy turned—

—waking up abruptly as she rolled off of the small pallet she'd been sleeping on, eyes wide and staring at the door as the avatar came into the room.

"Sorry, I didn't want to come in, but… Did you hear me? I called your name and tried knocking, but…" The awkwardness in his voice and demeanour were adorable, and Buffy forced herself to keep a straight, serious face. _'Not. Angel.'_

"I'll be there in a minute. Training, right?"

He nodded. "I'll be in the hall," he said, withdrawing and shutting the door.

She grimaced, untangling herself from the blanket wrapped around her and bending to rub a sore knee as she got up off the floor. Grimacing at the pain in it when she straightened it, Buffy moved closer to the candle on the table next to her bed and rested her foot on the edge of the bed, elevating the knee so she could peer at it. She frowned at the purple bruising on the patella, running a finger across a shallow cut that ran down one side.

She couldn't remember whacking her knee trying to get out the window, and besides that, she was pretty sure she hadn't had a sore knee when she went to sleep.

_'When did I do that?'_


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

"So, what is this place?" Buffy asked, stretching out on the chaise in the Balance Chamber after a bout of hand-to-hand training she'd probably enjoyed _way_ too much considering who her sparring partner was.

Fake Angel, crouching by the fireplace with his back to her, moved slightly at her voice. For a long moment he said nothing, then fully turned, meeting her eyes and regarding her with a long look.

"Follow me," he murmured, rising.

"Didn't realise it was that huge a question," she remarked, watching him. "Can't tell me here?"

He passed her, clearly confident she would follow. She did, but only with her eyes, making no motion to get up. He'd made it halfway to the far end of the room before realising she hadn't followed, and turning to look at her. A hand went to his hair in a frustrated motion.

"Are you always this difficult?"

"_You're_ the one dressed up like my ex."

"I told you, it was the Powers. Not my choice."

"But I bet you're enjoying the perks of being a vampire. You know, super strength, super hearing… and the blood habit, of course. Big bonus there."

His frown told her he was having trouble reading her tone. "I don't eat."

"And that brings me one step closer to _not_ figuring out what you are," she muttered.

"I told you, I'm—" Right. Vampire hearing.

"An avatar for the Powers. Whatever the hell that means."

"It's complicated." He gestured again for her to follow, the movement jerky and impatient. She continued to sit, just watching him. Sure, she wanted to know where she was, why the Powers had brought her here, how she was going to get home—all of it. She also needed to know, though, just who and _what_ this guy was. How he could be so much like Angel, but really, really _not_ like Angel at the same time.

"Un-complicate it."

His exasperated look hardened into a glare. "You're not at the stage in your training where I can tell you this."

Buffy snorted, crossing her arms, her eyebrows creeping up her forehead. "Really. _That's_ the line you're giving me?" She rolled her eyes at his confused look. "Let me guess. 'It's the truth'."

"Well—"

She shook her head, her own impatient gesture cutting through the air to almost mimic his. Dealing with gods—or whatever the Powers were—sucked. "Forget it. But you're _going_ to tell me later."

"Of course."

She rose, giving in because no viable alternative was in sight, and besides, she really did want to know where she was. "So, where are we going?"

He started walking again. "There's another room you need to see."

Long strides let her catch up with him just as he came to a halt in front of the far door. "Another room, huh. What's in this one? Wall of fire? Three-headed dog? More of you guys? I could find a use for an army of Angels."

He made a noise in his throat, looking a bit embarrassed. "Nothing so… simple." Removing the amulet from around his neck, he placed the face of the diamond against a recess in the middle of the door, intoning a word in another language, his voice deep and not at all belonging to Angel.

Black bled out from beneath his hand, flowing across the surface of the door as though the very colour of the diamond itself was escaping. The black rippled, the door shimmering before it slid from existence as the colour melted down to the floor, extending outward into a path for them to follow. She could see flickering light at the end of the pathway; the patch of light—a doorway?—some indeterminable distance away.

The avatar gestured for Buffy to precede him across the threshold. She did, after a long, doubtful look at him, cringing at the absence of sound when her foot touched the path; each of her footsteps taken more and more carefully after when they continued to fail to cast any sound at all. She was walking on nothing, or at least on magic, which might as well have been nothing for the easy way it had winked into existence.

"This isn't eerie at all," she muttered. Then louder, "I could go for that wall of fire, now. Might even be willing to charge right through it."

"You're scared?"

"Just wigged."

"I don't know what that means."

She snorted, looking back at him over her shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Are you driving this thing?"

He furrowed his brow. "I only opened the door. You'll learn how after you're introduced to the Time Chamber."

She stopped walking to turn and stare at him. "Time Chamber," she repeated.

He nodded, his hands finding her shoulders and pushing at them, trying to turn her back around. "Don't stop here. You can't stop walking."

She shrugged him off, turned and started to walk again. "You know I'm the thing the monsters hiding in the dark fear, right?"

"Most of them think you're a myth. And I'm not scared; if you stop moving in here you can compromise the magics and get lost. The amulet suspends time, halting in the middle of it can cause it to fold around you."

Buffy started walking a bit faster. "Time Chamber?" she prompted again.

A flare of light surrounded them, faded and left them in a round room, the floor textured like wood but glowing and a pale colour of no wood she'd ever seen before. The floor provided a definite boundary to the room, but its misty, pseudo-solid walls kept her in the middle of the disc the floor created. Images danced in the mist, always changing and Buffy had to look away, focusing her eyes on the avatar instead of on the room around them lest watching make her nauseous.

"Time Chamber," Fake Angel repeated, making a sweeping gesture.

"This doesn't answer my question. You know, the one where I asked where I was, and then you gave me some order that I didn't follow and then apparently got sidetracked…"

Buffy trailed off, tilting her head a bit to look around his arm and at the scene playing in the mist just behind him.

"W-what am I looking at?" The wobble in her voice caught her off guard as much as it did him, and he shot her a concerned look before turning to follow her gaze. The avatar surveyed the image; the crumpled form within was identical to the body he was wearing, and as Buffy moved past him, closer to the wall, she saw him frowning out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey! Answer me!" she barked, half turning back to look at him, though she was unable to tear her eyes from the image in the mist. The crumpled man was moving now, shifting an arm, and she could just make out a pair of slim ankles beside him. The image frame was too small to see anything else.

"This is the Time Chamber," Fake Angel said, his voice angering her with its calmness. "That appears to be a frame from Acathla's hell dimension."

Buffy shook her head, the rough motion bringing the tip of her ponytail up to sting the tip of her ear, the brief shock causing her focus to return. "That happened five years ago."

Her attention still on the frame, she watched the ankles walk out of it and Angel completely collapse a moment later. He was alone; had to be. Well, it looked like he was, anyway.

Moving forward, she reached out a hand toward the wall, ignoring how the mist bowed around her fingers, swatting at the avatar's touch when he tried to grab her.

"Buffy, back away." His voice was low, gentle, wary, managing a wild animal, or someone about to do himself harm. "Stop paying it attention, and the image will change."

Transfixed, Buffy made a vague motion with her head—not sure if she was nodding or shaking it, just trying to acknowledge something she hadn't really heard. She kept moving forward and now she could feel the mist against her skin, chilling her hand, then burning it. It was dense, denser than it looked, and not wet. Magic itself, making her skin tingle as the colours in the image started to blur together in her vision.

Vague awareness of the avatar roaring her name registered atop the roaring in her ears. Then it was hot. So hot, and it dawned on her that she hadn't felt any sort of temperature at all in the round room.

She was lying on her side on a rough surface for the second time in as many days, face close enough to the dust she'd stirred up with her appearance that she had to wrinkle her nose to stop herself from sneezing, and rub at her eyes to brush out any dirt before she opened them.

She regretted opening them as soon as she saw where she was.

Sure, she hadn't been paying much attention to anything other than trapped-in-Hell Angel when she'd been watching the scene from safety, but that didn't mean she couldn't recognise the red tinged dirt beneath her, and the great rock spires jutting from the ground some five feet in front of her, looking from her angle as though they formed some type of wall; she wasn't ready yet to move to see the rest of the room.

Somehow—and right now she really didn't feel up to _positing_ that how—she'd been dragged into Acathla's Hell dimension. At the time when Angel was still trapped there. Here.

"Really, really starting to hate the Powers that Be—eeee!" she muttered, gasping at the end when something, a hand, touched her back.

Buffy was on her feet in a moment, all at once taking in the rest of the jagged stone-spire wall, the weird tooth-y looking thing that might have been the door to the cell…

…and _Angel_, lying prone on the floor, arm still slightly outstretched, the fingers that had brushed her still reaching. Cringing at how easily she'd spooked, Buffy bent back down, clenching his hand in her own. She _had_ to be messing up the past, big-time, but as worried as she was about that, right now she was way more concerned with trying to figure out how long Angel had been here already.

"Hey, can you understand me?" she murmured, sitting down next to him, squeezing his hand a little. He watched her, strain and wariness in his eyes. He didn't believe it was her. She didn't blame him—if this was really Angel-in-Acathla's-hell, then he was used to high school junior Buffy, not 22-year-old,-Sunnydale-is-a-crater Buffy—but that sure as hell wasn't going to stop her from trying to get him to recognise her.

"Yeah." His voice was hoarse. The thought floated into her head that it was from disuse, and she let herself believe it, because this was stirring up enough old, bad memories.

"Okaaay, can you _recognise_ me?"

That same wary look, like she was asking him a trick question or something. Which, okay, it kind of was.

"Always," he murmured. His hand moved and she loosened her grip, letting him thread his fingers between hers as she closed her eyes for a moment. This Angel also hadn't yet broken up with her, wouldn't for another year—maybe another seventy-five for him; she still wasn't really sure how time passed here. She needed to remember that.

"I've…" he winced. He was trying to sit up as he spoke, too hurt to do both. She resisted looking him over to take in all of the injuries, putting her free hand on his shoulder to still him. The physical evidence of the injury wasn't the problem. It would heal. His mind would take longer, and even now Buffy wasn't certain he'd entirely recovered from this.

"…long time," he was saying, voice a whisper.

Of course. He didn't know time ran differently here, so he figured the time he passed here had also passed back at home. That would figure her aging in; explain his easy acceptance of it.

"Yeah," she replied, unable to think to do anything but agree with him, not even sure if she was being reassuring or not. "Yeah, you've been here for a long time."


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

No more words passed between them. Instead Buffy just sat there, holding Angel's hand and absently stroking his shoulder until he fell asleep, leaving her standing guard. She'd gradually become aware of a scraping noise on the other side of the door and was watching that spot now, braced for attack should one come.

It didn't. The scraping stopped and she could make out footsteps, the sound fading as they moved away from Angel's cell. Still, it was only a matter of time before someone—or thing—returned. This was a hell dimension. She doubted Angel would be granted a long reprieve, and while it pained her, she knew she needed to be out of here before someone came back.

Sliding her hand from Angel's, Buffy rose and looked around the cell again. Magic had gotten her here; magic was going to have to get her out. Frowning, Buffy looked down at the amulet hanging around her neck, warm where it rested against her chest.

"How do I work you?" she murmured to it, lifting it with one hand, her other grasping the chain.

"_Don't_ take that off." Angel's voice, even though Angel was still sleeping and the voice had come from behind and above her, not below her. She turned to look at the avatar, peripheral vision keeping Actual Angel, lying by her feet, in sight.

"Okay, this is majorly weird. Makes my 'army of Angels' comment not too far off, too."

"Two is hardly an army." He held his hand out to her. "And we aren't supposed to be here."

She nodded and reached for his hand. Her getting home problem was solved; she probably had to take back some of the curses she'd directed at the Powers. Then she hesitated and withdrew. "We could bring him with us. Who's to say this isn't how he got home?"

Fake Angel shook his head. "It can't be done."

"If you think I care about some time—"

"Not because it would cause a time paradox. It wouldn't, it would create an alternate reality altogether. But physically it can't be done. The time stream doesn't accept passengers."

"So this _isn't_ how he got home."

A curious look entered the avatar's eyes, and after a moment Buffy realised it was compassion. She didn't think Fake Angel was capable of that type of emotion—it surprised her.

"It's not, Buffy. Leaving now isn't going to change anything in the future, or the past."

She didn't have any choice but to trust him. Buffy knew that. Still, it felt wrong just leaving Angel here, knowing the state this place would put him in before he got away. She gave the avatar's still-outstretched hand a long look, then crouched again, smoothing one hand across Angel's dusty brow and bending, pressed a kiss to his temple.

"I'll see you soon, promise," she murmured, just in case he was even a little aware. Then she stood up again, straightening with her face set as she met the avatar's irritated gaze. "What?"

He shook his head, glancing down at his hand. She took it, and he intoned something in the same moment in that deep voice he'd used before.

This time there was no sensation of travelling. No falling, no vertigo. Nothing at all between standing in the cell in Acathla's dimension and standing back in the Time Chamber, where Fake Angel dropped her hand upon arrival and stalked to the path leading back to the Balance Chamber.

Frowning, Buffy followed, keeping her pace as sedate as she could without falling behind entirely. "What?" she repeated.

As soon as they'd reached the end of the path and were again on safe, solid stone floor, he turned, planted his feet and glared at her. "You can't go back in there."

Buffy snorted. "You think that's what I meant?" When he furrowed his brow, she shook her head and began crossing the hall, making her way toward the little bedroom she'd been given. "I didn't want him to think I was just abandoning him."

"So you lied?"

She wouldn't have responded, except he sounded genuinely confused and like he was trying to get a grasp of the situation. Whatever he was, it definitely wasn't something that had ever had to deal with human emotion before.

"Not," she hesitated. "…entirely. You said us being there and leaving didn't change anything. So," she shrugged, back still to him, refusing to turn around because she had no idea what was on her face. "He'll still get back to Sunnydale. Maybe _soon_ was a stretch, but…" she shrugged again, shaking her head, feeling a little as though she had abandoned him even though it didn't make much sense because the Angel she'd just seen was _not_ the current Angel.

"So you were comforting him, then. Or… yourself?" The tone, still saying he was trying to understand, brought a wry smile to her lips.

"Something like that."

-8-

Her dreams were strange again that night; Angel-laden, as expected with her inter-dimensional (or was that inter-inter, given her starting point?) trip, but beyond that nothing that she could really isolate enough to identify. They were just dreams though; real, normal ones, not Slayer dreams that she should be worried about.

Well. Maybe she wasn't entirely sure she shouldn't be worried about them regardless.

"When you're done your workout, we have to go back into the Time Chamber."

"And here I was thinking you'd never let me in there again," Buffy said, not pausing in the quick jabs she was throwing at the heavy bag hanging from the ceiling.

"Keeping you out of there would make your presence in this dimension pointless," Fake Angel replied.

Finished the reps on the bag, Buffy turned to fully look at him, catching the towel he tossed her as she did. "Thought I was here for training," she said, dragging the towel across her face and patting it along her shoulders and upper chest. Dropping the towel to adjust her ponytail, Buffy wrinkled her nose. "My hair still smells like sulphur. It's never going to come out."

He coughed. "I never said your training was only going to be physical."

"I'm outta here at the first sign of a written."

"I didn't mean theory. In addition to furthering your combat training, there is a metaphysical aspect to you being here."

Buffy's expression turned confused, doubtful. "Me, Slayer. _You_, metaphysical-magics-guy." She pointed a finger at herself and then him as she spoke.

He grimaced, then a sly, albeit amused smile crept onto his face. "You know, the faster we get through the basics of this today, the faster I show you where the hot springs are."

She raised her eyebrows, lips parting a bit in shock. "There are hot springs, and you didn't think to mention them before now?"

He shrugged.

She sighed, throwing up her hands. "Okay, fine. I'll be magicy-Buffy."

-8-

Being back in the Time Chamber didn't instantly make Buffy an expert at working the room, much to her chagrin. The majority of the stuff she'd learnt as the Slayer had been instinctive on some level—the weapons and combat stuff anyway—with routine and training just keeping her edge. This magic stuff… not so much.

The avatar had opened the path into the room again, telling her that she "wasn't to know how to access it until she could get herself back into it without his help." He'd maintained the argument even when she'd pointed out that he could rescue her, without a problem, the exact moment she stepped into another dimension.

"So, where am I supposed to be going?" Buffy asked, looking at all of the images playing through the mists around her. Images would hover longer when she was looking at them, pulled into place by the attention, and then would drift away and change as soon as she changed her focus. It was kind of cool.

"I suspect you already have a place in mind," Fake Angel said, tone bland.

"Home?" she asked, making her voice as cheery and hopeful as she could. He just stared at her. "What? You already told me I wasn't allowed to go back to Acathla's dimension."

"I was under the impression that my prohibition of it wouldn't mean anything to you. Were the Powers wrong?"

"Hey! I'm not _that_ bad at doing what I'm told."

He crossed his arms, continuing to stare at her.

"Okay, fine. You know, if you're letting me do it, it's not going against orders."

"I wouldn't presume to give you orders, Buffy."

"Oh, _right_," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Fine. Does this thing have a directory of Hell dimensions, or something? Maybe a Rolodex? 'Hell Dimension – Acathla' would have to be right near the beginning, right?" She continued studying the mist as she spoke, looking for a frame of Angel. When one didn't turn up, she glanced over at the avatar again.

He stood with his arms crossed near the path, just watching her, making no effort to help. Great.

She turned back to studying the flashing images. "Tests usually come _after_ training."

"Think of it as on-the-job training, then."

_Just _when he wasn't being Angel-like at all. "Oh, now he's witty."

"It's… possible you're rubbing off on me," he said, sounding a bit sheepish.

Buffy let out a laugh. "That's your Angel bits rubbing off on you, not me," she said, darting her hand out, into the mist, as she caught sight of an image that looked like Acathla's dimension. "So, I go and come back? That's it?"

"That's all. Try not to cause too much damage to the timeline while you're there."

"And the magic word to get me back is…?"

She turned her head a bit to regard him when he didn't reply immediately.

"You have to work it out for yourself," he said at length. "You already know how to use the amulet, you just have to remember that you know."

"Oh sure, _now_ he tells me," she muttered, looking back at the image she still had her hand in the middle of.

"Okay, amulet, do your thing," Buffy said, looking down at it. At her words the diamond began to glow and the mist began to move and flow around her. It wasn't as hypnotic as the last time. She still didn't feel completely in control, but at least she knew what was happening, and where she was going.

She still wasn't prepared, though, when she suddenly pitched forward, through the mist and downward, feeling like Alice falling through the rabbit hole because she was _tumbling_ and she _definitely_ hadn't done that before.

The smell of sulphur hit her nose the instant Acathla's dimension had fully materialised around her—or she had fully appeared in it, whatever—and Buffy cringed, having hit the ground. Again.

"Really need to figure out how he stays on his feet," she said, getting to hers and brushing off her pants as she looked around.

This was not Angel's cell. It was _a_ cell, certainly, but Angel was not in it. It shouldn't have surprised her; she hadn't seen Angel in the frame when she'd been back in the Time Chamber. And really, she wasn't here to see Angel anyway. She was here to be here, and to figure out how to get back. Yeah, easier said than done.

"Magicy-Buffy. Suuure," she murmured, running one finger along the side of the amulet. Fake Angel had said she already knew how to work it, and that was probably true, because somehow she'd activated it back at Giles'.

But what had she done?

Lifting the chain from around her neck, Buffy slipped it around her wrist. Nothing, though she'd been hopeful that was all it would take. There was probably actually a word, an invocation or something that would activate it, like the avatar had used.

Sighing, Buffy slipped the thing back around her neck, tucking the amulet itself beneath the neckline of her shirt to keep it in place. This all seemed so simple. Go into another dimension, come back, avatar declares test passed, get to soak in hot springs. There had to be some other aspect that he hadn't mentioned, something to trip her up, something that she was supposed to do here.

Only question was; what was it?


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Buffy sneezed.

She'd been trying not to, but the combination of the sulphur smell and the dust her feet were kicking up as she tried to find a way out of this cell had finally gotten to her. The noise broke through the quiet of the cellblock and she cringed, looking at the door and hoping no one had overheard.

When it was clear no one was going to show up to investigate the noise—kind of a bummer, really, since at least then she might be able to fight her way out of here—Buffy let out a breath.

The sneeze had at least let her know that there was no one around to hear if she made a lot of noise; or at least no one of any consequence, which at this point was pretty much the same thing.

How was she going to get herself out of this cell? Figuring out how to get back to the Time Chamber and Fake Angel was the most obvious answer, of course. And since it was what she was supposed to be doing, it would make sense for her to work that out, and before her position here actually ended up being compromised.

That said, part of her really wanted to figure out if she was here in a period when Angel still was.

"If _someone_ told me how that time-machiney-room worked, I might have a better idea…" she muttered.

Putting a hand against the jagged section of wall she was pretty sure made up the door, Buffy traced her fingers along the teeth-like seam, trying to find a switch or something she'd be able to jimmy to get out of here. She wasn't surprised when she didn't find anything. She was _inside_ the cell, after all.

_'Okay, Buffy, think. You just travelled through time. And space. A locked door? Totally overcomeable.'_

And if morale boosters also provided answers, she'd be set.

Buffy placed two fingers against the bump in the collar of her shirt where the amulet rested. The face of the diamond was warm beneath the fabric; a sign its magic was active, she was starting to realise. Lifting it out of her shirt again, Buffy frowned down at it.

There was a faint sheen of light coming off of the face of the amulet, the blue emitting from it a very different quality than the single, flickering torch that was the only source of light already in the cell. The blue light made the shadows in the walls deeper, and turned the red tinge of the rock walls slightly purple. The amulet definitely hadn't been glowing before—what had she done to activate it?

Whatever it was, it still wasn't enough to get her out of here, apparently.

Sighing, Buffy held the amulet up as she began to pace around the small space again, looking into all of the nooks in the walls, trying to find anything she might have missed with the lower light. Nothing.

At least, nothing in the walls.

Something was on the floor. It was half buried in the dirt, but a piece stuck out far enough for the light to glint off of its edge. Hoping it was a key—as unlikely as that was—Buffy bent, brushing her free hand across the object to clear the dust from around it, then loosing the compacted dirt surrounding it. Someone had stomped it into the ground from the look of it. That, or it had been here for a while and no one had noticed.

Digging her fingers into the dirt to get a good hold on the little metal ring when it didn't pop free, Buffy gave a little tug to break it out of the ground. Holding it directly next to the face of the amulet and in the cast of light, she frowned, rubbing off the dirt that clung to it.

Not a key, she reflected, flaking a bit of caked on dirt from the decal on the ring. The band was sized large, probably a man's ring—maybe belonging to a prisoner who'd been held in this cell previously.

Some of the dirt finally fell away, and Buffy's heart clenched at the tarnished crown that was revealed beneath it. She rubbed the rest of the dirt off on her pants, then brought it back up to the light so she could study it better.

Angel's Claddagh. The ring matching the one he'd given her.

But if it was Angel's cell, then where was Angel?

If Buffy had really thought about it, she probably wouldn't have assumed that he'd been confined to the cell for his entire stint in hell. But Angel had never been forthcoming about what he'd gone through, and Buffy had tried not to think about it too much in the months following his return.

Clenching the ring in her hand, Buffy rose and stared at the door, expecting it to open at any moment to reveal Angel, and maybe someone she could beat up. When it didn't, Buffy scowled, letting the amulet fall from her hand to thump back against her chest, and crossed to the door.

She pressed her palm to the toothy seam in the door, glaring at it as though she could will it to open. Nothing, not surprising, and Buffy knew by this point that she should be entirely focused upon getting back to the Time Chamber so she could finish this test and soak in the hot springs she'd been promised. She'd been here long enough that, now that she knew the cell was actually in use, she needed to worry about being discovered.

Regardless of all that, though, she continued to stare at the door. "Okay. Open sesame."

A long moment of nothing happening and Buffy sighed, dropping her hand from the door as she turned away from it. The amulet was still glowing, the blue light steady where she could see it from the corner of her eye.

The amulet pulsed. Just once, but with a light bright enough that Buffy had to throw up her arm to shield her eyes from it. When she dropped her arm again the amulet wasn't glowing at all.

Confused and wondering what she'd done, Buffy looked down at it, then around the cell again, pausing and wrinkling her nose when she caught sight of the door.

There was a hole in it, about where her hand had been before, but it didn't look as though something had been blasted through it. The edges were blurry, a mix of the red stone surrounding the hole and the blackness of the hole itself, almost as though the edge didn't exist at all.

Buffy approached the door slowly, reaching a hand forward to let the tips of her fingers enter the centre of the hole. They met resistance and she frowned, pushing against whatever solid thing she'd touched until there was a flash from her amulet and the resistance disappeared altogether.

She snatched her hand back when it disappeared too.

"Oh, this so, _so_ can't be good," she muttered. Laying her hand against the door itself again told Buffy it, at least, was still solid. That was good. She hadn't caused permanent damage to the laws of physics, then.

But what was with the hole?

Buffy dragged her hand along the door, cringing when she touched the edge where the stone ended and the black began. The edge felt spongy, almost like she could punch her hand through it without any effort at all and make the door crumble away even more. It was a weird feeling.

Backing away from the door, Buffy picked up a stone and flung it at the hole. The stone remained suspended there against the black for a moment as though stuck with a magnet, then it came flying backward, whizzing by her ear as Buffy ducked out of the way.

There'd been no flare from the amulet, not like when she'd actually pressed against the gap with her hand. No question at all, then, that somehow she'd caused the hole, and that she was the only thing that could pass through it. What had the avatar said? The time stream didn't accept passengers, right. Nothing could go through without an amulet.

Of course, the last time she'd jumped into a portal, it had been Game Over for Buffy. This time didn't involve blood, at least. She was here for a test—of some kind—and didn't really see any reason for the Powers to want to let her die in training—kind of pointless, right? So, her life _probably_ wasn't really at risk here.

_''Course, that'd mean this was planned. I am so doubting this was planned.'_

Any other way out of here at this point—any possible other option, even if it was Fake Angel showing up and bailing her out and telling her she'd failed—would be welcome. Buffy stood still for a moment, looking at the single stalactite hanging from the cell ceiling, then sighed.

Help was not coming.

Maybe the inside of the hole wouldn't be as claustrophobic-feelings-inducing as it looked.

Right. As if.

Taking a long breath in, Angel's ring still clenched in her hand, Buffy moved to the door, striding through the hole before she could think better of it, her amulet pulsing once, vividly, as she took that first step and then disappeared.

-8-

The other side of the portal wasn't pitch black.

It was dark, but then, it was also night. In Sunnydale—the entrance to Sunnydale Cemetery was at the end of this street. How she'd ended up in Sunnydale instead of back in the Powers' In-between dimension was anyone's guess, and probably not really important, since Sunnydale definitely didn't exist any longer. So she was in some past Sunnydale. Great. Running into a younger version of herself would make this nightmare of a test even worse.

Avoiding Scoobies—and herself—this time of night shouldn't be too difficult. It felt like it was somewhere near three am, and her patrols rarely ran that late. A bit of chill in the air said it was maybe late January, early February. Probably nothing going on. Probably.

Mind racing through everything that had happened in Sunnydale around this time of year when she'd lived there, Buffy cringed. Okay, so there could be a lot going on here. She needed more information, needed to figure out why she was here instead of back with the avatar, because operating under any assumption other than this being part of the test would drive her crazy.

Buffy turned and headed toward the main part of town, picking up her pace, and then veering off in the direction of the high school in the hope that its state would give her some indication of _when_ she was.

As she got closer and closer to the site, though, it didn't.

The high school was in ruins, yes, just like it had been after they'd defeated the mayor at graduation. It didn't, however, look as though it had been blown up or ripped apart by a giant snake. Doors and windows boarded up, graffiti covering the walls, and with one wing looking on the verge of collapse, the damage was too mundane for it to have been an epic battleground.

It was definitely the old Sunnydale High, the one she'd attended, not the newly rebuilt one that had started looking like this once the First and the Hellmouth started infecting the town. But even if it was the old Sunnydale High, it wasn't _her_ Sunnydale High.

Stopped in front of the gates, which were chained shut despite enough missing bars in the fencing to allow anyone in, Buffy tilted her head back and addressed the sky. She could imagine Fake Angel watching her from the Time Chamber, aggravating know-it-all look on his face as he tracked her progress. Then again, he might not even be watching her. And if he was, she knew that he certainly couldn't hear her.

The knowledge didn't stop her from talking anyway.

"Where am I, and why is my night vision suddenly a whole step on the scale closer to vampire-y?"


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

It didn't take much exploring of the school grounds for Buffy to figure out some vamps were using it as a nest. She didn't see anyone skulking around, though, and thinking it better to figure out the state of things rather than just rush in and start slaying, Buffy backed off. Better to learn who the Big Bad was first.

Moving quickly away from the school, Buffy's next destination was Giles' apartment. It was intact, at least, though upon vaulting over the wall and into the garden—the gate was locked—she realised the windows had been boarded up from the inside.

She would have left to try the Magic Box if his car hadn't been parked on the street outside. Instead she marched up to the door and rapped on it after trying the doorknob and finding the door locked as well. A flurry of voices came from the other side of the door at her knock. Whispers, by the quality of the sound. Buffy wrinkled her nose, trying to figure out why she could practically make out the words—it would have been easy if the voices hadn't all been talking over one another.

Someone—it sounded like Willow—said _"Shhhhhh!"_ loudly, and the whispers ceased. A fumbling noise as the locks on the door were undone and the door swung open. Buffy made to take a step forward, smiling, before the unexpected sight before her had completely caught up and she froze, instincts taking over and dropping her into a guarded stance.

Giles stood there, as expected. The unexpected part was the crossbow levelled at her chest, and the large cross hanging around his neck that made her cringe when she glanced at it.

"Giles?" she asked, unsure of his glare, the aggression in his stance, his refusal to lower the crossbow. "Giles, it's me. Buffy?" She held her arms out to either side of her body, low, palms facing outward, trying to show him she was unarmed.

"Yes, I'm more than aware of who you are," Giles said in a dry, almost droll tone as his eyes ran over her stance. "What I'm unclear of is why you're standing on my doorstep." He hadn't crossed the threshold, not any part of him, and Buffy's mind was starting to compile things and put two-and-two together.

It didn't quite add up to four though.

"Oh, you know. I'm a Slayer, you're a Watcher. We go together like peanut butter and jelly. Jekyll and Hyde. Vampires and blood."

He'd been lowering the crossbow, but as she finished speaking it came back up. Maybe the vampire line had been a bit too much.

"Hey, I know, why don't you run back home before we get tired of your quips?" Giles was in the way, leaving Buffy unable to see the speaker, but she couldn't mistake the voice.

"Thought I'd offer you lessons, Faithy."

"If you can't stake her, Giles, step aside and let me do my job."

Two-and-two suddenly made five.

Buffy took a step back. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her, bringing everything into sharper focus as she realised why her senses had seemed so sensitive since she'd left Acathla's Hell. They weren't closer to being vampire-like. They _were_ vampire senses. Sometime between stepping into that black hole and stepping out of it again, she'd become a vampire.

This was a nightmare.

Buffy felt her face shift as panic started to build in her and she took off; back up over the wall and out of Giles' courtyard, not really knowing where she was going and just letting her instincts take her where they would. She ended up in Spike's crypt, or at least the crypt Spike had lived in in _her_ Sunnydale. It was vacant here.

"A vampire in a crypt. Fitting. To think I always made fun of Spike."

Perched on the edge of one of the sarcophagi, Buffy rested her head in her palms, elbows on her knees. She could feel the ridges of her game face beneath her fingers and let herself vaguely wonder what she looked like right now. She hadn't died. She still had her soul, certainly, or else she really wouldn't be worried about being a vampire and apparently being alienated from all of her friends.

She shouldn't be a vampire. Even if she'd ended up in some alternate reality where alternate-Buffy had become a vampire, _she_—real Buffy—shouldn't be a vampire. This had to be part of the Powers' stupid test. Even if it wasn't, she was _so _making it Fake Angel's problem when she got back to the Time Chamber.

"You're a hard woman to find when you want to be, pet."

Buffy looked up at the doorway, face shifting back to human guise with her shock at the man standing there.

"Spike?" she breathed. Alternate reality, Sunnydale not a crater; of course he was still alive. Still, she hadn't expected to see him here if he wasn't living here.

"Uh, yeah? What's with you?"

He crossed the crypt and crouched in front of her, placing his hands on the edge of the stone on either side of her. She just stared at him, meeting the blue eyes as they studied her.

"Should get you back to the mansion, love. Sire'll flip if you're not back by dawn. You know how he gets."

Buffy didn't bother asking who was supposed to have killed her and brought her back as a vampire. If Spike was fetching her, it was pretty much a given.

"Right," she muttered.

Spike frowned as he straightened. "Where'd this bauble come from?" He touched the amulet as he spoke, studying it now instead of her face.

"Pretty, huh?" she asked, rising and moving past him without answering the question. The mansion. Angelus, not Angel; probably-soulless Spike; and her, a vampire—who had never actually died and become a vampire—with a soul.

There was so much wrong with this reality.

"And your answer to Angelus when he asks you where you got the amulet is going to be…?"

"Like it's any of his business."

"Getting locked up then. Excellent choice. Really, I'm sure at your age you can last what, a week deprived of blood before losing a chip off your sanity, maybe?"

Ewww. Hopefully longer than that if she was going to be stuck here for a while.

"Didn't know you cared so much, Spike."

He grabbed her arm and stopped her, moving in front of her almost quicker than she could follow, both of his hands squeezing her upper arms as he glared down at her. "Could you, _just once_, not push it, pet?"

When his grip started hurting, she jerked her shoulders back and forth and threw him off, striding around him again, reminded of their relationship in the year before he'd gotten his soul back.

"I can handle myself."

"So you keep saying," he replied, throwing his hands up. "Don't appeal to me when he's pissed. I'm done. Not helping you."

She snorted. Yeah right. This Spike didn't seem much different from _her_ Spike, the one who had gone up like a torch with the Hellmouth. She was pretty sure she could count on him to help her if she needed it, even if it was up against Angelus.

"Fine," she said absently.

"Something's different with you."

"Nope. Same old Buffy. Why aren't you with Drusilla?"

He was silent for a moment. "You hit your head or something?"

Dammit. Was her feel of this place way off? She'd figured if Angelus was around, that maybe he'd never gotten his soul back, never gone to hell. Then Spike and Drusilla wouldn't have left town, and Drusilla probably wouldn't have run off with that Chaos demon, or whatever.

When she didn't reply, he stood in front of her again. "Look, pet, I know we don't always get along, but you _know_ I've been trying to look out for you better since the Slayer got Dru."

Oh. Score one for Faith.

"That's me. Buffy the Vampire Placeholder."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Do we have to do this right now?"

"You got a story about that amulet Angelus'll buy?"

When she just looked at him, he shook his head. "You're lucky you're the only woman in the family, and that he's already eaten all the nuns in Sunnydale, pet."

Buffy rolled her eyes as they approached the mansion, Spike darting in front of her to enter before she did. So, her, Spike and Angel…us were living all alone in one huge house. There was a fantasy or two just waiting to happen, there. If it was actually Angel and not Angelus, anyway. Which it wasn't. So the fantasies were going to have to stay in her head. Where they belonged.

_'Focus. Focusfocusfocus. On something other than your libido.'_

"You _are_ lucky, pet," Spike said as she came in the door.

"Huh?"

"Well he's not here, is he?"

"He—? Oh." Angelus. Right. "Hold on a second. If he isn't here, where is he?"

Spike's scarred eyebrow rose. "What's it matter, pet? Probably out tormenting the Slayer and her friends. Won't be long, never is. Not nearly as interested in Faith as he was you.

"Why does it look like this is news to you?"

Buffy had been staring out the window, just listening. It bothered her that, despite having clearly won, Angelus was still messing with her friends. "Of course it's not news," she replied. How would soulless-Buffy act? How _had_ soulless-Buffy acted, before soulled-Buffy had taken her place?

Buffy tensed when Spike's hands found her shoulders, and she had to look up when he turned her to face him again. Damn, he was standing close. Her shoulders dropped though, relaxing as his fingers kneaded the muscle beneath them.

"How long's it been, Spike," she murmured, hoping the lazy tone in her voice—which she barely even had to fake right now—would sound less like she was trying to get information and more like foreplay. It worked. He smirked at her in response.

"What, since it was last you and me alone?"

She swatted at him. "No. Since we were first together." One of his hands slid down to her waist and she brought the hand of the freed arm up to twirl a finger in her hair. "I always forget."

"Liar," he breathed out with a chuckle. "Been what, two years? Two and a half, maybe. Angelus is a bloody hog."

Two and a half years. Maybe almost three since she'd been brought over, by Spike's tone. If she were in her Sunnydale they'd be dealing with Glory, she'd be trying to protect Dawn. Didn't tell her anything, except that she'd failed as the Slayer and Sunnydale had gone to hell long before it was supposed to.

At least she didn't remember clawing her way out of her grave this time. Maybe she hadn't even had to—she couldn't see Giles letting her survive as a vampire long enough to rise. Angelus and Spike (and probably Drusilla, but she wouldn't bet on it) had probably protected her corpse. Creepy.

She hummed in agreement to his statement, trying not to look as distant as she felt. Angel _was_ possessive—not that Spike wasn't. Then she pulled away from him, because she _so_ wasn't comfortable enough having sex with him when Angel could walk in at any moment, even if soulless-Buffy had probably been involved with both of them. A lot.

'_Not. Focusing.'_

She could feel Angelus coming anyway, in a way stronger than she'd ever been able to sense Angel when she was just the Slayer. If she'd had any doubt about her theory that he'd sired her, it was gone.

She hadn't realised how tense and alert she was until she noticed Spike looking her up and down. "Home, is he? Shame, really. Hate sharing with him."

"Probably why you always forget it's me sharing with you."

They both turned to look as Angelus entered the room, more of a bounce in his step than Angel ever had, cocky grin on his face and a little spot of blood on his collar that she wouldn't even have noticed if it weren't for enhanced eyesight. And smell.

"I don't belong to either of you," Buffy interjected, the response automatic. Angelus tilted back his head and laughed, while Spike just shook his. God, what had she gotten herself into?


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

"Say your goodbyes and pack, we're leaving Sunnydale tomorrow."

Propped on the couch like a king lording it over his subjects, Angelus declared the line without any preamble at all. Buffy and Spike shared a glance. _He_ looked like he'd been expecting it but, after having to sit on the other side of the room because Angelus kept trying to get her on the couch next to him and his wandering hands, Buffy was just annoyed. Annoyed, and definitely not willing to let him order her around when she didn't even belong in this reality.

"Really."

Angelus' eyes narrowed as he surveyed her. "Really," he mimicked, not hitting anywhere near her tone at all. But then, that had been the point.

His gaze was dark and challenging as he surveyed her. Waiting for her response. If vampire Buffy did this often, she was going to have to be careful how she played this. Spike had picked up that she was different pretty quickly. She didn't need Angelus catching on as well.

"We already own Sunnydale," she said. Okay, that was a guess. But the town didn't look like Faith was doing a very good job keeping out the Big Bads, and Angelus and Spike—and her—definitely counted as Big Bads. There probably wasn't anyone tougher than them here that _she_ at least, couldn't have thrown out. "So why bother finding new stomping grounds?"

Angelus rolled his eyes. "Save your energy, Buff. I've already made up my mind."

"Waste of time taking over here, then, if you ask me." Evil. She could do evil.

"Which, just to point out, I didn't. Think. We move to L.A., you _finally_ stop your whining about getting new clothes, _and_ I stop walking in on you and Spike fucking every time I'm out of the room for more than ten minutes. I'll even spring for a hotel. Then you can have your own _wing_ of doorknobs to hang socks on."

"Don't see that stopping you walking in on us, mate. I think you come looking."

"You take sides, you're out, boy."

"Children." Buffy interrupted, rising. Both looked at her and she crossed her arms. "What about the Slayer?"

"Leave her. They'll be cleaning up after their failure with you for decades. New one doesn't matter."

Failure? Well, yeah, okay, that was probably what she was, wasn't it?

Buffy could feel herself deflating, Angelus' comment way too well placed if he didn't know she had her soul. How would evil Buffy react? She wouldn't care that she'd failed. She'd probably enjoy the idea—and vampires tended to go after their family, the people closest to them. So if she'd already been hunting the Scoobies…

"Matters to me. Spike, too. Right, Spike?"

"Not taking sides, pet." He was staring into the empty fireplace, not looking at either of them. It looked like it took more effort than it should have.

"Aw, come on, Spikey. What about your Slayer-thing?"

Spike snorted. "Going after her's like going after you was. 'Cept with me more likely to come back all dusty, what with the power those witch friends of her have."

Willow _and_ Tara? Faith had barely even met Tara!

Angelus stood, crossing to her and seizing her arms in his hands. She glared up at him, refusing to back down on this. If this was a test, there was something in Sunnydale she needed. She was so not letting Angelus cart them off to L.A.

"You get two nights. Two. Slayer isn't dead by then, I don't care. We're leaving."

Smirking, she pulled away from him, dancing across the room toward the hall leading to the sewer access. Yeah, it was almost dawn, but she could start scoping things out from below ground, at least, until the sun set again.

"And if I'm not done by then?" she asked, standing by the door, a bit of a pout on her face.

"Think you can hold a Hellmouth by yourself, go for it." Angelus said, dropping back onto the couch, eyes still watching her.

"Like I couldn't. But, wouldn't want to leave you with only Spike here for company in L.A."

His snort was almost lost under Spike's cough. "You're replaceable. Tick-tock. Wasting time, Buff. Better hurry up. Might get bored and leave early, without you."

"There are forty-three churches in Sunnydale, baby. I'm sure you missed a nun or two who can keep you occupied 'til I'm done. Won't even notice the time pass." She left the room with that, ignoring the snarled "Bitch!" that followed her out and getting down into the sewers before she let herself relax and reflect on the conversation. She was getting way too wrapped up in this evil thing. Could feel the presence of the demon she was sharing her body with, who had enjoyed the banter; and, more importantly, had enjoyed giving _permission_ to Angelus to kill someone.

Shuddering, she took off in the direction of the city. She needed to figure out what she was supposed to do here, and get the hell out. She also really, really needed to figure out how vampires spent so much time in the sewer with noses this strong.

-8-

Buffy stopped at a fork in the tunnel halfway to the Magic Box. Or, at least, halfway to where the Magic Box had been in _her_ Sunnydale. Who knew if it was even still standing with the state of things here? If it _was,_ she hoped to get in, take a look at Giles' books for hints about the amulet, and then get out again before anyone came in to open for the day.

She should keep moving, get finished before the sun even had a chance to fully come up, but the fork had given her an excuse to stop, given the conversations with Spike and Angelus time to catch up with her. Angelus had been his normal, blustery, arrogant self. She really wasn't concerned about suddenly being dragged off to L.A. against her will. She'd killed Angel once; she could probably do it again if she had to.

It was the discrepancy between Spike's worry about the amulet, and Angelus' complete overlooking of it that bothered her. Why had Spike focused on it so much?

Maybe he just saw her more often than Angelus, paid more attention. Maybe she just needed to find him and ask him why he'd assumed the thing was such a big deal—'cause, sure, _she_ knew it was a big deal, but there was no way Spike could know.

Starting to move again, Buffy reflected on the reactions she'd been getting. Giles treating her like the enemy. Faith having slid into her place with the Scoobies. Angelus, thinking he could order her around and control her when he _so_ couldn't, even though she was letting him, anyway.

Spike pinpointing the _exact_ thing she hadn't wanted him to notice or make a big deal of.

Pretty sure she was right under the Magic Box now, Buffy found the nearest escape from the tunnel, climbing up the ladder and peering out of the manhole cover. The sun was up—she could feel it—but the alley beyond the cover still lay in shadow. Buffy pushed the cover off, clamoured from the hole and took in the alley with a glance.

It didn't look promising for the state of business in Sunnydale. A couple of the doors onto the alley were shut with rusty padlocks, and the garbage looked like it hadn't been collected in a while. Buffy could make out the faint smell of a decomposing body somewhere, and she cringed. At least the rear of the Magic Box was clear of garbage and not padlocked shut. It looked like it might still be in business. Good.

It didn't take much force on her part to break open the backdoor to the Magic Box, the deadbolt mechanism ripping from the wood with a screech, door banging against the wall after flying inward. She caught it when it bounced back, letting it smack against the palm of her hand.

_'Probably could have thought this through better,'_ she reflected, letting the door close behind her and making her way through the backroom—set up like a training area, just as it had been at home. She grabbed a stake from the weapon rack on the wall, amused by how much better she felt just holding it. Breaking and entering. Probably not the best way to begin proving she had her soul. Well, no one had to know.

The emergency lights in the store itself were just bright enough that she didn't need to worry about turning on anything else, leaving Buffy free to make her way straight up to the loft overlooking the store. Frowning, she crouched to read the titles on the spines. At least the ones that still had words on them. And were in English.

"I am so not research girl," she muttered, beginning to pull out likely looking books and flipping through them, skimming the pages, reading headlines and looking at pictures in the hope of finding something—_anything —_about the amulet. She knew that Giles had a book on it; at least he had in _her_ world, so maybe it would be here too.

If—when—she got out of this, she swore she was going to start paying better attention. Maybe she'd even read the Slayer Handbook.

Buffy's attention held through five of the massive tomes. The sixth, though, she slammed shut after only managing to get through the first few pages, rising back to her feet with a frown. Desire to know how closely this Sunnydale aligned with her own was getting to her, and her curiosity had her back down the ladder and behind the sales counter almost before she was aware she was moving.

She reached one hand under the counter, searching for the latch that would open the hidden compartment Giles kept his Watcher diary in, assuming things in this world were at least that similar. They were. She smiled, popping the lock and grabbing the thin book, satisfied that she could at least count on habits being the same, even if events hadn't quite unfolded here the way they were supposed to.

Perching herself on the edge of the counter, Buffy flipped open the book, studying the familiar handwriting for a long moment before she began to read. A few pages in told her things were at least kind of the same. Dawn was around, but there was no mention anywhere of Glory. They thought Angelus and Spike might be out to destroy the world.

There was no mention of her, vampire or otherwise, anywhere in the pages. Angelus had said she was their big failure. Keeping her out of the records was probably the best way to begin covering up that she'd ever existed. How nice of them.

Almost a quarter of the way through the journal, Buffy looked up and at the door, her eyes widening as a key scraped in the lock. Sun was trying to peek through the slats in the drawn blinds at the front of the store. She'd been here way longer than she'd intended on it, hadn't really learned anything, and now Anya was coming to open for the day.

Crap.

Crouching and staying to the shadows best she could as the door opened and then closed, Buffy made her way back to the backroom, standing just beyond the 'Authorised Personnel Only' barrier and keeping her gaze on the store. She knew she should get out of here and back to the mansion, but rushing home to Angelus didn't really hold any appeal for her. And besides, her senses were telling her something was off, and she hadn't quite placed what that was yet.

As soon as the woman stepped into her line of sight, though, Buffy realised what it was. Her creepy vampire sense of smell apparently knew what people smelled like, even if Buffy had no idea who went with what scent. It hadn't been Anya she'd detected. It had been Willow, and beneath the permeating scent of Willow, Tara.

_Tara_ worked at the Magic Box? What had happened to Anya?

"W-w-who's t-there?"

Buffy grimaced, pulling further away from the door. Running into Tara was a lot different than running into Anya. Sure, Anya had been a vengeance demon for a thousand years, but as a human she was pretty harmless. Not trusting that she could rely on Tara's shy, sweet nature in this reality, it was probably better for her to get out of here _before_ she was actually seen.

"Freeze!"

Buffy did. Mid-step, because once the magics wrapped around her she didn't have any other choice. She couldn't even turn to look at Tara. Or speak. Damn. Angelus almost looked welcoming right now.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Tara moved into her line of sight, a bit of confusion that Buffy couldn't even begin to interpret hidden beneath the guarded expression. She looked like she was trying to process something, her gaze darting between the top of Buffy's head and the journal still in her hand, never once pausing to meet her eyes. Buffy didn't blame her for that, at least. Drusilla had been able to hypnotise her victims, and Tara likely knew Buffy's vampire skill set better than she did. Maybe she could do the same thing.

Buffy wasn't about to complain about whatever had Tara distracted, either. She wasn't dust yet—had to be thankful for that. Maybe the Powers were paying attention after all.

Finally, Tara met her eyes. Then she sighed and approached, her steps small and unsure. She held one of her arms extended, though, and there was nothing unsure in her touch when she laid two fingers against Buffy's lips, no hesitation in the ebbing of the binding magic that stopped her from talking. Buffy remained frozen in place, but she could move her facial muscles, at least.

"Y-you don't belong here," Tara said. The words weren't harsh; they were directed at _her_, not at her pointy-toothed vampire exterior. Tara knew—_somehow,_ Tara knew—that something weird was going on.

"How can you tell?" she asked, overriding the part of her that wanted to play dumb, to try and lure Tara into letting her free. The demon was _loud._ Was this how Angel felt all the time?

"Your energy is d-different. And you're looking at me like I'm an old friend you've lost." There was a bit of a smile on her face at that.

"Could be manipulating you. Vampire. We do that."

A bit of doubt entered Tara's face and she retreated, giving Buffy a wide berth as she made her way around her and disappeared into the front of the store. A minute or so later she was back with the stake Buffy had left laying next to the cash register when she'd grabbed Giles' journal. Buffy eyed it.

"Your grip's off. You'll sprain your wrist and never get it through the ribcage like that."

Tara laughed, looking down at her hand and shifting her grip on the stake. "Better?"

"That'll do it."

Tara was quiet for a moment, looking down at the stake as though wondering if she could actually use it. When she looked up and met Buffy's eyes again, there was a worried frown on her face.

"I-I should c-call Willow. T-they m-m-might—"

"Don't." Buffy interrupted. "Tara, I _know_ Faith. She'll stake first and ask questions later, and then instead of being soully-Buffy I'll just be dusty-Buffy."

"J-just Willow."

"She won't come alone, Tara."

"I'll ask her t-to bring Mr. Giles i-instead."

Buffy grimaced, her heart giving a twinge as the image of Giles standing in the doorway, crossbow pointed at her chest and his finger on the trigger, flashed in her memory. "No. Just… let me leave, okay? Tell them what you know."

Tara's worried look turned anxious and she shook her head. "W-willow's on h-her way."

Telepathy. She should've kept Tara talking so she couldn't divide her attention enough to communicate with Willow. Oh well, too late now.

A couple of minutes later the Magic Box's front door slammed open, and footsteps raced through the store to the back room. A single set. Willow hadn't brought anyone with her, at least.

"Tara!" Willow exclaimed, rushing across the room to the other woman. She threw her arms around Tara in a hug, not even sparing Buffy a glance. "You're okay, right? She didn't hurt you? She didn't say anything?"

Tara shook her head, repeating the motion for every question until Willow finally pulled away.

"Willow, she's… she's not the Buffy we know." The words were quiet enough that Buffy knew she wasn't supposed to have heard them.

"What do you mean, sweetie?" Willow asked, looking at Buffy as she spoke. Buffy, who hadn't been harmless since she'd been Called, nonetheless tried to make herself look it under the scrutiny.

"She… Willow, I think she has a soul."

"Trust her, Will," Buffy said.

"Shut up. No one's talking to you," Willow barked.

Taken aback, Buffy did. Tara looked back and forth between them, then drew Willow out of Buffy's line of sight. Their footsteps passed back into the storefront, stopping somewhere near the counter, and Buffy knew she wasn't meant to eavesdrop, but since it would take more effort to _not_ listen, she listened intently instead.

"She broke in?"

"S-she was leaving when I came to open. I-I think the book she's holding b-belongs to Mr. Giles."

The sound of the hidden compartment opening followed Tara's statement and Willow made a derisive noise.

"What could she want with that?"

"Willow… I-I don't think she knows what's going on here."

"It's a trick, Tara. She got caught and she's trying to get you to let her go." Willow's voice moved a bit closer as she spoke, and Buffy heard her lift the phone from its receiver. "I'm calling Giles. He might want us to get information from her about Angelus and Spike before we stake her."

"Willow…"

The sound of Willow dialling Giles' number paused. "Baby, if she _does_ have her soul, there's no reason for her not to want to help us. If she doesn't, then we need to establish that for sure too. But Giles and Faith, and Xander, should know we have her, and get over here so we can decide what to do." She finished dialling and Buffy discovered that her ears were sensitive enough to hear the call connecting. Cool.

Willow explained what had happened in a rush and Buffy heard Giles' familiar, _"Good God," _come through the lines. She could picture him frantically rubbing at the lenses of his glasses. At least, she hoped she was important enough, at least as a Big Bad if not because she'd been his Slayer, to merit that.

Buffy got to stay a statue, alone in the backroom of the Magic Box, for another fifteen minutes before all at once being faced with Faith, Giles and Xander when they came in the back entrance. Faith had brought an axe, and Buffy rolled her eyes. An axe? For a single, immobilised vampire?

"I suppose the damage to the door was you," Giles said, surveying her.

"No key, what can I say."

"She doesn't _sound_ like she has a soul," Xander said. There was nothing friendly in his face when she searched it. No help from that quarter.

She studied Faith next, but there was nothing more than a bit of boredom in the other Slayer's features. This Faith had never met Slayer Buffy. She only knew vampire Buffy, and probably thought any hesitation now was just over sentimental. Buffy didn't want to side against herself, but she was kind of starting to agree.

"H-her energy is different. I-I can't say it's a soul, b-but she's n-not the Buffy we're used to." Tara's voice was so quiet Buffy was surprised anyone could hear her, but they all turned to look at her and Giles nodded.

"It's a soul. I'm all soulful-Buffy again, Slayer's honour."

Faith snorted. "I'm the Slayer. You gave the title up when you died."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You were Called when Kendra died, not when I did."

No one reacted as she'd expected to that statement. They all started looking at one another as though Buffy couldn't possibly have known this. That was weird. Hadn't that been pretty common knowledge?

"Extraordinary," Giles said finally. "I suppose you learned that from the Watcher's Diaries." As he said this, he pulled his journal from her hand. Confused, Buffy wrinkled her nose.

"I got kicked outta the cycle when the Master killed me."

"Are you referring to the vampire _we_ call the Master, or to your Sire?"

"What do you think, Giles? Angelus is _so_ not Master-anything of me."

Giles nodded, murmuring "Extraordinary," again under his breath. She couldn't tell if he believed her or not. He certainly wasn't taking any chances—while speaking he'd grabbed a small crossbow from the rack on the wall and trained it on her.

"I'm going to order you released, and then you're going to go over to the wall, _slowly,_ and stand there, back to it, facing us," Giles said.

"I'm going to fall on my face, first," she replied, voice dry.

"Yes, of course," he muttered, clearing his throat.

Buffy gave him a lopsided smile. "Ready."

Giles nodded in Tara's direction, and all at once Buffy pitched forward, knees giving out, arms flying forward to catch her as her muscles remembered they actually had to do work to hold her up. She got to her feet, holding her hands out to her sides as she started taking slow steps back, toward the wall Giles had indicated.

Gaze darting around the room, Buffy catalogued where everyone was standing, the reach of each of their weapons. Faith's axe, Giles' crossbow, Xander's stake—all pretty easy to get around. Tara and Willow were harder to gauge with the magics—Tara could catch her with the same trick she had before, but she was going to have to take that risk.

Almost to the wall, Buffy changed directions, leaping forward, relying heavily on this younger, less experienced Faith being unable to keep up with her combined Slayer-vampire speed. The axe swung, but Buffy, flipping over the vaulting horse, was well out of its path before it came near her. She broke into a run as she landed.

The door only a few paces away, something flung Buffy off her path, a sharp, deep pain in her back knocking her off course. Her game face emerged as her forehead smacked into the stone wall. Crossbow bolt. Giles had shot her. Jerking back to her feet but caught on something, Buffy gave a wrench to get herself free, diving into the sunlight beyond the door, dropping from the path of another bolt.

Skin on fire, Buffy made it down the manhole and into the safety of the sewer just before she actually went up in flame. Despite having no need to breathe, her chest was heaving as she tried to calm down for a moment before taking off down the tunnel, afraid someone was following her. Her hand scrabbled at the arrow protruding from where it had impacted her back, in her left shoulder just inches above her heart. If she'd been moving any more slowly…

She forced herself to stop running when she was sure she was far enough away from her starting point. Bracing herself against the wall, she gave the shaft a sharp pull, gasping when the head came free and brought along with a chunk of flesh. She could feel a bit of blood trickling down her back—not nearly as much as there would be if she were human, with a heartbeat, but enough.

She was hurt, and not healing as fast as she should be. Not only was the arrow wound not starting to knit, but her skin was still smouldering, raw and painful where the sun had struck it. She knew vampires. She needed to feed, or this was going to take way, way too long to heal.

Dragging her feet, Buffy started moving toward the mansion again. She'd have to sneak off to the butcher's after sunset, pick up a couple of pints of pig's blood; enough to keep her if she was stuck here for a while. Sighing, Buffy glanced down, wishing she could figure out how to work the amulet and get herself out of here.

Her eyes widened, hand rising to pat at her throat, trying to find the chain the amulet hung on. Nothing. Gone. It had to have been what had caught when she'd been fleeing the Magic Box, broken when she'd pulled away.

She'd lost the amulet.

How was she going to get home now?


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

"Ow," Buffy muttered. Pulling herself up out of the sewer and into the mansion had stretched the crossbow wound, never mind what every motion was doing to the skin the sun had hit. She rested her forehead against the wall to regain her bearings once actually back on her feet.

She wasn't _really_ all that injured. She'd been hit by worse and remained conscious enough to stumble home after the fight. No, her problem here was the feeling of crawling away with her tail between her legs, dragging her dignity on a thread behind her as she went. She'd been outnumbered; she would've been unable to fight her way out if she had tried—without harming anyone, anyway—and her flight versus fight mode had switched solidly to a very rarely used flight.

It was embarrassing. She wasn't supposed to run away, wasn't supposed to end up more disadvantaged after trying to gather information than she had been before she went in.

"Slayer got the better of you, then?"

Feeling like a teenager slipping back home hours and hours after curfew, Buffy turned to look at Spike. He stood in the doorway, a bit of a smirk on his face as he looked her up and down. She frowned. His comment sparked an urge within her to slam him into a wall for the snide remark. Pushing aside the urge only made her frown deepen, because it didn't go away as easily as it should have.

Letting Spike continue to study her and fighting to maintain her mask of indifference—Buffy herself was indifferent, the demon was not—Buffy walked forward and made to duck around Spike, only to find him in her path when he shifted his weight to lean against the doorframe in front of her.

"Move."

"Come on, pet. You reek of blood and charcoal. What happened?" He touched her sleeve as he spoke, flaking away a bit of burnt shirt that Buffy hadn't noticed. She really had, literally, been on fire. All of her bluster and she'd nearly made _herself_ into dusty-Buffy.

Definitely unwilling to admit anything like that, Buffy only glared at him. "I said move, Spike."

"Yeah, and?"

She shoved him, sending him smacking against the wall and out of her path. He snarled, but she was already making her way up the stairs, ignoring him and, mostly, just trying to escape.

The amulet, Buffy was beginning to realise, had been keeping her demon at bay. Muted. It was almost as though, by wearing the amulet, she hadn't fully been part of this reality. Now she was. Was, and would be until she got it back. The demon was fighting her now, frustrating her and dividing her concentration.

Prepared to step more gently—okay, prepared to step gently, period, since she really hadn't been—Buffy took a seat on a couch in the main room of the mansion, letting Spike catch up to her.

"The bloody hell was that for?"

"Leave me alone, Spike."

"Cranky bitch," he growled. "Girl's still tied up in the basement. Eat something."

Buffy made a face, both at the suggestion she drink blood from someone, and at the way the demon perked up at the idea.

"If you think she's getting stale, kill her. Your call. Can't take her to L.A., anyway," Spike said. Misinterpreting her expression wasn't like him, but then, this wasn't her Spike, and she wasn't exactly herself right now anyway. He came to stand near her, tracing one finger along her collarbone, careful not to touch any of the burnt spots around her neck. "Whatever you decide, get healed up."

"I don't _want_ to go to L.A.," Buffy replied, letting the demon speak—just once—because, hey, it was true. Though probably delivered whinier than she would have said it.

Spike snorted. "Feel free to knock Angel 'round a bit to convince him otherwise, then, love. I'd sit front row for that."

She glared at him, rising and beginning to leave the room.

"Not a fan of that suggestion, then?"

"I'm going to change and lie down."

"And eat."

She paused, turning her head to glare at him. He raised his hands, palms open, inoffensive, but with the look on his face saying he wouldn't give over despite what his body language told her.

"Be uncomfortable to try and sleep on that."

"Maybe I wasn't going to sleep."

She hadn't meant to imply anything, but he grinned anyway. "Anything else'd be more than uncomfortable, but hell. I'm game if you are."

"You're a pig, Spike." She started to walk again and this time he let her go. Well, at least long enough for her to reach an upstairs room that her vampy nose told her was hers.

Fantastic. Even in a reality where she was involved with _two_ men, she slept alone.

"What now?" she asked, turning to look at him. Frustrated, she made to cross her arms, then thought better of it when the motion pulled at the hole in her shoulder.

He gave her a flat look. "Thought I'd help you bandage that up, didn't I?"

"It'll heal! It's healing. I'm fine."

"Buffy…" he murmured. Then he shook his head, concern disappearing as though it had never been there. "Fine. Do it yourself." And he left, striding down the hall, his coat flapping behind him.

Grimacing, Buffy closed the door behind him and peeled off her shirt. She started turning, stopping halfway through when her mind caught up with her and she realised she was looking for a mirror that wasn't there. No reflection, no mirror. Right. Spike's offer looked pretty good now.

The bedroom had a bathroom attached, at least. She could clean up a bit, even if she couldn't really get a good look at all of the damage. Maybe that was for the best anyway. She doubted sewer hair did anything to offset her bad sunburn.

Buffy washed her hair, mostly one-handed, in the sink, then ran a shallow bath. She carefully cleaned the delicate burnt skin and area around her wound, daydreaming the whole time about soaking in the hot springs Fake Angel had promised her. Small steps. Her light at the end of the tunnel was still finally getting to go home-home—or at least back to England with Willow and Dawn and Giles; Xander if he was back from his trip—after this whole mess with the Powers was through.

Back in the bedroom Buffy traced the edge of the arrow wound with her fingers before taping a piece of gauze over it, arms awkwardly bent to make sure the bandage stayed in the right spot. It was healing, at least. She'd had broken _bones_ heal faster, but it was on its way.

Being a vampire sucked. Bad pun _so_ not intended.

Her clothes ruined, Buffy threw open her vampire counterpart's closet, cringing at the sight that greeted her.

"Oh god," she muttered, pawing through the outfits. "What did she do, raid every bondage, fetish and leather store in Sunnydale?" Surprising neither Angelus nor Spike had mentioned how mundane her own clothes were. Buffy was pretty sure at least one of the dresses had to have come with an instruction manual to put it on. The wardrobe was certainly very… Vampire.

After going through everything in the closet and realising she could stand there for hours trying to find something that didn't make her look like she'd shopped from the "Good Little Vampires" catalogue and still fail, Buffy settled. The silk and leather corset—black and blue, one of the few things with a colour that wasn't red—was less impractical and restrictive than it looked, and certainly fit her better than she'd thought, and the pants she'd pulled out were fairly ordinary looking dress pants. Not to mention the only pants in the entire wardrobe that weren't leather, covered in straps, or made with vinyl accents.

She didn't feel like she knew herself when she was finally dressed again, but at least the outfit was tame.

"New pink shirt. Top of the 'things Buffy needs to buy when she gets home' list."

-8-

After trying, and failing, to take a short nap—her instincts didn't want to let her relax in the nest of two of the most murderous vampires in history, go figure—her next order of business was exploring Spike's claim of a girl tied up in the basement. She felt a bit of trepidation as she made her way down the stairs. She didn't really know how much she could help the girl, and she was starting to think she might just end up jumping her because as much as she was ignoring it and wanted to think she wasn't capable… well…

Buffy was starting to get really, really hungry.

"Oooh this is not good," she muttered, pressing herself against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. She'd become used to the scent of her own blood. It hadn't made her hungry, just raised her drive to find shelter and stay safe until she couldn't smell it anymore. Someone else's blood, though, that was altogether different, and Buffy wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back upstairs to hide under her bed sheets until the sun went down and she could confront the Scoobies and get her amulet back.

But Buffy Summers was not a coward, and she definitely didn't turn and run away from two things in one day. Besides, she could control herself. Right? She certainly didn't want to feed from anybody. That was way, way up there on her list of ick-factors. Shaking her head to rid her mind of the image of her ripping someone's throat out, Buffy slid back the bolt on the door and pulled it open.

Long and narrow with the back portion of the room covered in shadow, her immediate thought was that her senses had lied to her and the room was actually empty. Then her eyes adjusted and she realised a small figure was huddled in the corner. The scent of fear permeated the room beneath the fouler odour of excrement.

The girl was alive, at least. Buffy could tell that much without stepping foot in the room—a soft, ragged breathing reached her ears. And there was something familiar about the way she hunched over, the way her scraggly hair fell across her curled up form. Prepared for this to be someone she'd come across in her own Sunnydale, maybe rescued before, Buffy made her way into the room.

Careful steps had her halfway to the girl before she stopped dead, recognition flooding her senses. Then she dropped, falling to her knees, brain barely registering the pain that shot through her injuries at the jerk of hitting the stone floor.

"No," she gasped, just once, before her hand came up to slap across her lips and halt the litany of 'no's continuing to play through her mind, trying to escape. _'No.'_

Hand still pressed against her mouth, tears beginning to flow one at a time down her cheeks, Buffy crawled across the rest of the distance, practically pulling herself with her one hand because her knees were too wobbly to do much else. Hoping her eyes had deceived her, rationally knowing that the vampire senses were way too sensitive and honed to lie, even though she couldn't really use them, Buffy pushed the girl's hair away from her face.

She was sleeping, bruised and gaunt, but there was no mistaking it. Buffy forgot her hunger, the force of her devastation pushing the demon—utterly unable to handle it—away.

"Dawn. Oh god, Dawnie. No wonder they wanted me dead," Buffy whispered, voice choked by her own tears. She was lucky she hadn't been killed on the spot. Maybe the Scoobies assumed Dawn was already dead, instead of just being held prisoner.

Buffy wrapped herself around her sister, cradling the fragile form to her chest. Her mind raced, trying to figure out how she was going to save Dawn, get the amulet back and get herself out of this reality without being staked by Faith when she approached her friends again, or killed by Angelus when he figured out she had her soul.

"This is my fault, and I'm going to fix it," she murmured into Dawn's hair. Whatever the consequences, she couldn't leave Dawn here. She'd died for her sister once and, even if this wasn't her reality, even if this wasn't her Dawn… she couldn't bear the thought of being the one who had killed her.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

It took Dawn a while to wake up, and when she finally came to it was slowly enough that Buffy didn't think she would have noticed without the vampire senses making her so aware of everything. With them, though, she noticed a bit of a change in Dawn's breathing—not much, it was still laboured and weak—but enough. Then Dawn was aware and pushing at her chest, squirming to get out of her arms, starting to gasp.

"Shh, Dawn, it's okay," Buffy murmured.

Dawn let out a frightened gasp, hands pressing harder against her, almost hitting as she tried to escape. Buffy let her arms drop, watched Dawn scramble backward, just far enough so they were no longer touching before running out of steam and simply staring. Painful as it was to see the terror in them, Buffy met her eyes.

"Dawnie, it's not what you think. I'm not who you think," she said, trying to keep her voice low. She had no idea what Spike and Angelus' daytime habits were, had no way of knowing whether or not they were sleeping, but the mansion was quiet. Voices would carry, even from down here.

"I know exactly who you are," Dawn said, her voice low and scratchy, tone nowhere near friendly. Not whispering, but unable to project any louder than she was speaking now.

Buffy shook her head, grimacing. "I promise, Dawn. I'm not her."

Dawn looked away. "I'm not playing this game with you again."

"It's not a game, sweetie." She had no idea how she was going to convince Dawn of that, though. Without the memories of the Buffy from this reality, she couldn't make any assumptions about what Dawn had been through. She could make guesses, sure, and good ones, but guesses wouldn't get her anywhere with Dawn if she just thought it was another game.

Dawn curled in upon herself again instead of replying. Sighing, Buffy moved toward her, then cringed and backed off when Dawn let out a whimper loud enough to carry.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Dawn."

"I'm not listening," Dawn said, voice muffled by her knees.

"Like that's anything new," Buffy muttered.

Dawn didn't react to that comment and Buffy sighed. What was going to convince her sister she was telling the truth, that she wasn't actually vampy-Buffy?

She stood, crossed to the door and peered up the stairs, trying to figure out if either of the mansion's other inhabitants were nearby. Sensing nothing, she returned to Dawn and slid down so she was again sitting on the floor next to her.

"I want to get you home."

"No you don't," Dawn replied. Buffy noticed, though, that she was looking at her again, even if it was only through her hair. Despite that, Buffy could only glare at her, exasperated, in return.

"Fine. You got me. I don't. Now, why don't you tell me how this ends because you are clearly the expert on all things Buffy."

Dawn jumped at her change in tone, leaning away a little at the impatience Buffy hadn't been able to hide.

"Go away. Don't come back. I hate you," she mumbled, enough venom in the sentiment that Buffy was sure she'd have spat it if she had the energy.

"Yeah, I get it. Pizza for dinner?"

Dawn actually looked up and stared at her at that, but Buffy had already risen and was leaving the room. At the doorway she turned back to look at Dawn. "Not a word to Spike or Angelus, okay?" Then she closed the door and locked it again before she could lose her nerve and convince herself that grabbing Dawn and running for it now was actually a good course of action.

Wiping at her eyes as she began to cry again, Buffy stared at the bottom of the stairs to consider her options. Take Dawn to emergency, call the Scoobies to let them know where she was and that she was safe, hope the amulet was right where it had fallen.

Not likely. She was going to have to arrange something with Giles to get that amulet back, especially if his interest in it mirrored his interest in her reality. The chance of it just lying around was so slim Buffy didn't even want to bother with it. Stealing it, out of the question. She was going to have to barter for the thing, or fight for it. And she would. Later. When Dawn was safe.

_'Dawnie.'_

Buffy glanced back at the door, then, wiping the last of the tears from her cheeks, raced up the stairs. If she looked at it objectively, it probably wouldn't be too hard to get Dawn out of here, right under Angelus and Spike's nose. She'd pissed Angelus off, though, when she'd put off the move to L.A. and she was going to have to keep that in mind. But after dark the mansion would probably be empty, and she'd be able to make her move then.

A hand closed around her arm as she entered the main part of the mansion. Buffy jumped, automatically striking back with her free hand. It too was stilled when her assailant, ready with a counter, grabbed it out of the air.

"Hey! Uh-uh. Where're you going so quick?"

Spike. Just Spike. She could deal with nosy Spike.

"Bed. Sun's not down yet, might as well try to sleep, right?"

His hands still on her arms, Spike walked her backward until Buffy was pressed against the wall with him standing way too close and staring down at her.

"Not in the mood, Spike."

"Don't care, _Slayer_."

She did not like the way he'd said that. Like he was calling her out on something he'd just figured out.

"Get to the point."

"So that you can slip out, maybe get yourself all dusty 'cause you keep forgetting you're a vampire?"

Floored, Buffy stared at him. He'd clearly overheard _some_ part of her conversation with Dawn, and he wasn't having near as hard of a time believing it as her sister did. Great.

Calling to mind how it felt, Buffy forced herself into game face. "Look, Spike. Bumpies. Kinda hard to forget."

His mouth twisted in a shadow of a smile. "Yeah, your _host_ is a vamp. And I've no doubt I'm still talking to Buffy, but you sure as hell aren't the _right _Buffy. Said it yourself."

"What's it matter? Still Buffy."

"You have a bloody _soul_, pet. I figured it out. Oughta lock you in that cell with baby sis 'til we figure out how to get rid of it."

Dawn was actually her sister here? That didn't make any sense.

"It's not going anywhere."

"No? Wasn't so hard to get rid of Angel's. Just have to figure out the catch on yours."

Buffy sighed, continuing to look up at Spike, maintaining eye contact. She refused to be cowed by him, didn't believe he would actually do anything to her. Was way, way too focused on getting Dawn out of that basement room, whatever hurdles she had to jump to make that happen.

"Don't taunt me, Spike."

"One thing I don't get," he continued, leaning down a bit. "Is why you're not all regretful. Would've thought you, of all people, would be crippled by grief."

Buffy cringed. Three years. What could she have done in three years?

She didn't need an answer to that.

Spike's lips were at her ear. "I'm betting you don't remember."

Buffy bit down on the inside of her lip to stop herself responding. She should just kick him and take off, but there really wasn't anywhere she could go until dark, and she needed to call Giles before she left the mansion. A tiny part of her, too, wanted to know the worst of what she'd done; it could help her with talking to the Scoobies and getting the amulet back.

"Bit of a drag, really, doing all that and not being able to remember it. Angelus would be disappointed. Should we let him know, love?"

"Are you done?" Buffy demanded, tired of being on the receiving end of his latest personality swing.

He laughed lowly, pulling back so he could meet her gaze again. "Don't like the idea? We both know you'd kick his ass if he tried anything."

"Kind of like how you have two seconds before I kick yours?"

He moved back a little, though he didn't let go of her arms. "Two seconds for what, pet?"

"To go _away_, Spike. I'm so not dealing with you right now."

"Been more than two seconds. Since I'm not getting my ass kicked yet, I want to propose something."

"If this is an ultimatum, I hope it's a fantastic set of last words."

"Figure I've got a few attempts while you find something to stake me with. But really, pet. I've got a suggestion. Heard most of your conversation with the girl."

Wary, Buffy twisted away from him. "Can he hear us?"

"Nah, sleeps like the dead." Spike grinned at his pun. "You want to take her back to your friends, I'll help you."

"Right. And I'm giving you, what, exactly?"

"Don't know yet. Have to think about it."

Buffy snorted. "No deal," she replied, and began to walk away. Spike didn't follow, didn't respond. Not necessarily a good sign with the way he was acting, but right now she had more important things to deal with.

-8-

Buffy stared down at her hand, hovering above the phone. Convincing herself that the phone call had to be made was different than actually making the call, apparently. Now that she was actually faced with it, well…

Buffy had no idea what she was going to say.

Being struck dumb was new for her. She could always, _always_ think of something to say. So being stymied by a simple greeting confused her, and as a result, she hadn't even dialled the number yet.

"I'm action girl. This is ridiculous," she muttered, picking up the phone and punching in the Magic Box's number. Giles answered on the second ring.

"Magic—"

"Giles, it's Buffy."

A pause. Then, "I have nothing to say to you," stated with a bit of a cough. There was a shuffle and then the line went dead. Buffy stared at the phone in her hand, then put it back in its cradle.

Of course he wouldn't take the call. She was going to have to go for another confrontation, and didn't that sound _exciting. _She'd been stupid to just take off the way she had earlier. If she'd tried to talk to them, she probably wouldn't have lost the amulet.

At least the sun was almost down; something good could be said for winter. As soon as Angelus and Spike headed out to hunt—and part of her cared that she was being so cavalier about deaths she could probably prevent, but most of her didn't—she'd get Dawn out of here. Until then she'd go out and grab a pizza and a couple of bottles of water in case her plan fell through and Dawn was stuck here longer.

Buffy headed for the sewer entrance, shaking her head. Too many poor decisions. She needed to make good ones from here on out.

* * *

><p><em>Please review, guys! I love feedback!<em>


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Pizza in hand, Buffy nudged the front door of the mansion closed behind her with her hip. Finding a place that would actually serve her had been an exercise in futility, and she'd ended up having to steal the thing. Apparently she was well known in town, but for all the wrong reasons. Why didn't Angelus want to stay in Sunnydale, again?

"First you bitch about the move to L.A., now you're spoiling the food. _Why_ do I keep you around?"

"You love me," Buffy quipped. Angelus made a disgusted noise as she walked past him.

"You know better," he replied. Then, "Come hunting with me," as he started to follow her deeper into the mansion.

"No."

"I wasn't asking, Buff," Angelus said. He snaked an arm out and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her against him. "I'm lonely."

"And behind door number one we have what happens when you kill everyone you come across."

"Smart ass," he growled, his hand starting to slide down her side. "Come hunting."

"Fish in a barrel. Why bother?"

"This from you. The woman who doesn't want to leave." His hand slid further down to cup her hip and Buffy jerked away, shoving him with her free hand. He staggered back, shifting to game face as he regained his balance. With a snarl, he threw a fist at her. She hissed, feeling her own face change when his hand hit the arm she'd thrown up in defence, jarring the still-healing hole in her shoulder.

The pizza box landed with a thump somewhere beside her, the room silent otherwise as they stared each other down.

"You want me to stick to my deadline," Buffy said, cutting across him as he opened his mouth to speak, "And get rid of the Slayer, you can stay out of my way."

Angelus glowered at her, the glint in his eyes promising she was in a whole load of trouble sometime in the near future. Then he straightened, game face melting away into his normal, human features. "Two nights," he reminded her with a growl, spinning on his heel and striding out. Her face changed back when the door slammed behind him.

"Drama queen," she muttered, listening as he walked down the path and away from the mansion. When he was gone from her earshot, Buffy grabbed the pizza box and made her way down to the cell in the basement.

Dawn still sat curled in on herself in the far corner, her head coming up when Buffy entered. She looked away, though, just as quickly as she'd looked up.

"Go away," Dawn said into her knees, a hint of whimper in her voice. Buffy rolled her eyes, approaching regardless but stopping after a few more paces.

Taking a long breath in through her nose, Buffy frowned, trying to figure out what had caught her off guard. There was something more than the stench of excrement and the greasy smell coming from the pizza box, more than the spicy smell of old blood and the familiar scent trails left behind by Angelus and Spike.

Buffy realised what it was when Dawn reached a hand up to scratch at her neck. Sure, the cell smelled of old blood, but there was a much fresher, more appealing—she shuddered a bit at that—scent of newer blood on top of it. Grimacing, she crouched down next to Dawn.

"Let me see," she murmured.

"Why so you can get a turn?" Dawn spat, pulling away. Buffy put the pizza box down beside her, not missing Dawn's glance at it, then reached out to move the hair away from her sister's neck.

"You want my help or not, Dawn?"

"Like you're actually giving me a choice," Dawn said, glaring at her. Buffy shrugged and shoved the box at her.

"Eat something, because I'm not carrying you all the way to the hospital." Buffy peered at the bite marks on Dawn's neck as she spoke, cringing at the multitude of scabs there. Her interest, though, focused on the broad, unscabbed bite there, and with her face this close, Buffy could smell Angelus' scent mixed most strongly in with Dawn's.

"I'm going to kill him," she muttered. Dawn, halfway through devouring her second piece of pizza, glanced at her.

"'eah. Righ'."

Gaze still fixed on the wounds, nose full of the scent of fresh blood, Buffy pulled away. Picturing herself breaking the thin scab starting to form over Angelus' bite and just getting a taste was enough to make Buffy fling herself to her feet. Her stomach clenched—in hunger, not revulsion.

"Come on, get up. We have to go."

Casting her a wary look, Dawn took another slice of pizza and stood, bracing herself with her free hand on the wall. Buffy slid an arm around the taller girl, letting Dawn lean on her.

"Why are you doing this?" Dawn asked when they were halfway up the stairs. Buffy glanced at her. "Why not just let Faith rescue me?"

"Are you kidding? I'm not giving Faith permission to just barge in here. Kinda like not being dead. Besides. I don't think they know you're still alive." She gripped Dawn just a little bit tighter when she tried to pull away.

"You're hurting me," Dawn mumbled. Buffy loosened her grip again. "Don't know why you didn't just kill me," she added, voice even quieter, as they reached the door. Buffy didn't think she was supposed to have heard it.

"Dawn, if you are seriously whining about being alive you can walk to emergency all by yourself."

"And why are you pushing me toward the hospital? You hate hospitals."

"You need a blood transfusion."

Dawn snorted. "So do you, by the look of it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Buffy demanded, stopping to glare at her.

"You're pale. Neat trick, by the way."

Buffy looked away, more embarrassed—and a bit ashamed—than irritated, for the moment. "Look. I just want to—"

They'd reached the sidewalk and Dawn shoved her, Buffy's shock letting her break away from the grasp she had on her. Dawn sprinted away, burst of adrenaline and whatever energy she'd managed to get from the pizza carrying her a few paces forward before she let out a gasp, starting to tilt to one side. An arm was there, supporting her before Buffy could move.

"I said no deal, Spike!" she called. A terrified look came across Dawn's face when she realised who was holding her, but she'd either used up all her energy or just given up, because she just stood there, not fighting Spike's hand around her arm.

He snorted. "Yeah, well, I— Buffy!"

Buffy spun, grabbing the crossbow bolt whizzing toward her out of the air, just before it could hit her.

"Not a pincushion, thanks. Already have a hole there!"

Faith stood reloading her crossbow twenty feet away. Giles and Willow stood on either side of her, Willow holding a book and some sort of amulet, Giles a stake. There was a bag by his feet.

"Did'ja just happen to be walking by, or do you actually have the patience for a stakeout?" Buffy asked, ignoring the crossbow levelled at her chest.

"You really think you're funny, don't you?" Faith asked, not sounding amused.

Buffy shrugged, backing up and taking Dawn from Spike. Ignoring, for the moment, the desperate look Dawn gave her.

"It passes the time. Why are you here, Faith?"

"I'm betting a little birdie told them something was up," Spike said.

"That a confession, Spike?" Buffy asked. He snorted.

"Feel like I should be offended, pet. No faith in me."

Buffy rolled her eyes, attention back on the three staring them down. Besides moving forward a little, not much was going on among them. Afraid they might hit Dawn if they tried anything, maybe.

"Let me go, Buffy. Let me go to Faith and Giles. Look, you don't even have to take me any farther," Dawn said. Her voice was soft, pleading; scared of Spike and still doubting Buffy's motives.

"Listen to her, Buffy," Giles called.

"She's safer if I take her."

"Not a request. You let her go, prove to us you have a soul, or I break this little stare down with an arrow through your chest," Faith said.

"Convenient to believe my soul's back when I have something you want, isn't it? I'm taking Dawn to emergency. You can meet us there."

An arrow went whizzing past them, Spike's annoyed shout merging with the '_thunk_' of it piercing the nearest tree.

"Not going to miss next time! Leave her, Buffy!" Faith shouted.

"Cut the crap, Faith. I'm not doing it your way. Grow up and deal with it," Buffy said. She turned, lifting Dawn up as she went. Her strength made it effortless, though Dawn's height made it more than a little awkward.

"Put me down."

"No. Spike, you got this?"

"Oh. Now she wants my help. One distracted Slayer, coming up. You owe me, pet."

Buffy grimaced. "Later," she replied. He nodded, rushing toward Faith at the same time as Buffy took off down the street, running at full speed, or at least as close to full speed as she could get. This place was beginning to wear on her—refusing to feed probably had something to do with it.

Half a block from the hospital Buffy stopped, putting Dawn down, ignoring the glare she was still getting from her. Dawn started walking, entirely under her own power, almost as soon as her feet touched the ground.

"You could have left me with them," she said after a moment.

"It wasn't happening, Dawn."

"Explain to me why. If you're supposed to be all good again, why not act it?"

Buffy laughed, wincing at the hollowness of the burst of sound. "Honestly? I don't know. I need the distraction. Have to find something to get home."

At the doors to the emergency room Buffy stopped walking, gesturing for Dawn to continue in. Dawn frowned at her.

"That's it?" she asked.

"I'm not going in there. Go. Get better. Tell Giles and the others whatever you want when they get here." Starting to walk away, Buffy turned, flinging herself forward and hugging Dawn. When her sister winced and gave a little, shocked scream, she pulled away.

"Sorry," Buffy murmured.

Wide-eyed, Dawn shook her head, backing up and through the automatic doors as they slid open. When she'd disappeared into the hospital Buffy moved away, walking down the driveway and out of the spotlights and then taking off at a run once she'd hit the sidewalk. Find the amulet. Get out of here.

The Magic Box hadn't been a conscious choice in destination, but it was where Buffy found herself when she stopped moving. The amulet wouldn't be where it had fallen off, but it might still be in the shop somewhere.

Okay, maybe the chance of that was pretty slight too, but she had to start somewhere.

The backdoor hadn't yet been repaired where she'd broken it and Buffy pushed it open, setting it back in its frame once she was inside. She gave the floor around the doorway a cursory glance, but sure enough there was no amulet to be found—and for that matter she couldn't even tell what she'd gotten caught on when making her escape.

Back of her neck prickling at being back here so soon after she'd been caught and chased out, Buffy made her way forward. There was a circle carved into the floor in the middle of the training room, mats pulled off to the side. Someone had been doing a heavy spell, by the look of it, and there was a weird feeling in the air, like the magic had left some residue.

"_Clausus,__"_ intoned Willow's voice behind her.

The weird feeling solidified into something pushing on her back, forcing her face first into the floor, Buffy grunting when her front hit the wood.

_'__Walked __right __into __it.__Way __to __go, __Buffy.__'_

When she couldn't move her arms to at least push herself up and regain _some_ of her dignity, Buffy scowled at the feet that moved into her line of sight.

"Haven't we done this already!"


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Buffy couldn't see a thing from this angle, but at least her vampy senses gave her a little bit to go on. Three heartbeats in the room, all of them quicker than rest rate, giving away how nervous her captors were. Great. A couple of jumpy witches (and Xander), with her completely at their mercy. She had no advantage here, and all the raised heart rates were making her hungrier.

"Well, kinda. But last time you ran away. So this time, you can just hang… er, _lie_ where you are while we get some answers."

"Xander," Willow chided.

"What? Don't _you _want to get some good I've-got-the-power comments in before she starts showing how much she learned from _daddy?_"

"_Xander!__"_

Buffy winced, but she couldn't blame Xander for being on the defensive already. All the same, she _needed_ to get that amulet and more than that, needed to get out of this Sunnydale before she ate one of her friends.

"Look," she began, fumbling in her brain for the words that would help here. "I don't expect you to trust me. I get it. You've spent like three years worrying about Buffy the Vampire Full of Oedipal Issues and you only ever knew Buffy the Vampire Slayer for like what, a year before that? Fine. I'm not asking for trust. But listen to me, at least."

"Don't see why we should," Xander muttered.

"We're listening," Willow said, voice loud and pointed enough that Buffy could picture her glaring at Xander.

"Right. Okay, uh…" Buffy said, thinking again. The easy part had gone better than expected. That boded well. Kinda. As long as it didn't rear up and hit her in the face—or into her back and through her heart. Yeah, nice to avoid that.

"Why'd you come back, Buff? Had to know we'd be waiting for you," Xander said. Direct questions going in the direction she needed them to go. Things were starting to look up, at least.

_'__Don__'__t __be __a __smart __ass. __Don__'__t __be __a __smart __ass. __Don__'__tbeasmarta__—"_

"Thought I'd do a little browsing. Check out what was new in stock. You know; spell book, troll hammer, blue diamond amulet that looks like it was ripped off the set of the Titanic…"

_'—__ss. __Oops.__'_

"Oh hey, it does, doesn't it? Maybe James Cameron's a—"

"Xander! Focus!"

"—not at all relevant to this interrogation."

"Thank you."

"T-the K-kostheshr Hekmon was s-supposed to have b-b-been destroyed. W-where—"

"Did I find it? Didn't. Giles did. Well, kind of Giles. Not your Giles. My Giles. A Giles? Giles who isn't the Giles you know. I am not making sense."

"Y-you kind of are, a-actually," Tara said.

"But the Kostheshr Hekmon is meant for Faith. Why did you have it?" Willow asked.

"Oh it _so_ is not." Not for the first time this conversation, Buffy wished she could see more of the room than the little narrow bit of floor she got. Xander's shoes were still in her line of sight, but that was about it beyond a couple of chair legs. The magic still pressing her down was starting to hurt, too.

"Well a vampire can't use it. You've got the whole mortal enemies with the Slayer thing going on."

Was that true? The research had to be wrong. At least, Buffy hoped that it was wrong because if vampires couldn't use the amulet…

_'__Liquid __diets __are __so __not __my __thing.__'_ There was always a way out, right? Right.

"Your sources must be wrong," Buffy said, hoping she wouldn't be called on her bluff. "Give it to Faith, even. Bet she can't use it."

"And you're suddenly the expert on ancient Slayer stuff?" Xander asked. "Come on, you need to be at least twenty-five in vampy-years to pull that off."

"Xander. You really think I'd put on some mystical, ancient amulet without knowing what it did first?"

"Yes."

_'__Yeah, __well, __never __again.__'_

"What does it do?" Willow asked, before she could work out an actual response to Xander's faith in her stupidity. "The sources are vague." She sounded ready to take notes. Great. At least she wasn't all on-the-offensive Willow anymore. Still, Buffy didn't know how volunteering more information about the amulet could help her.

"Opens portals," Buffy offered, trying for nonchalant. Not easy, given her position; dust tickling her nose and the sound of heartbeats and rushing blood in her ears. At least the three of them were outside of the circle with her in the middle, a safe enough distance as long as the spell held and they didn't get panicky. Buffy felt bile threaten to rise. Being near Dawn had made her hungrier.

"Portals," Xander sounded doubtful. "Portals to where?"

"Anywhere," Tara said, shock in her voice. "A-anyw-where the w-w-wearer w-wants."

"Tara?"

Motion around her, small vibration as footsteps shifted the floorboards. Then Tara's voice in a whisper, "We should let her up, Willow."

Buffy felt the demon perk up at the idea.

"No, you really shouldn't," she said. "Not that it wouldn't be nice, but I'm all good down here on the floor with the dust mites." She squashed back the hunger as she spoke. "Unless you're going to give me my get outta jail free card back, anyway."

She wished she could see more than this little portion of floor. Facial expressions, for instance, would be nice.

"We should wait for Faith and Giles to get back," Xander said.

Someone's feet shuffled, then Willow said, "They'd probably going to be at the hospital for a while."

"Not like this is going anywhere unless she won some spell breaking powers when she got that soul. They should get a say."

Buffy closed her eyes, tuning out the words. More of the same. They were sure enough that she didn't want to hurt them to hold her captive, but not sure what to do with her and nowhere near willing to give her anymore of the benefit of the doubt. Since even Buffy was starting to wonder if she could trust herself, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Buffy? I-I'm going to l-let you sit up." The hem of Tara's skirt entered into her line of sight as she spoke.

"But if you try to leave the circle, it's going to hurt," Willow warned.

"'kay," she murmured.

The pressure on her back stopped, magic disappearing in an instant instead of gradually like she'd been expecting and Buffy gasped, the tightness in her muscles releasing along with the pain. With slow motions she moved into the sitting position they'd demanded, glad she could see faces now even if no one wanted to make eye contact with her.

"So, are we chilling out and waiting for Giles?" she asked.

"Why, are we keeping you from an all-you-can-kill snack bar?"

Her exasperated look met Xander's glare. "Give it a rest, Xander. I promise, if I want to eat anybody, you'll be the first to know." Xander flinched and she played that back through her head. Grimacing and trying to be apologetic about it, she added, "Didn't mean that as a threat."

Xander snorted, and Buffy moved her gaze to Tara when the quiet woman's expression contorted, first confused and then with comprehension spreading across it. Looking determined, she strode around the circle and to a shelf on the far wall, reaching for a chest pushed to the very back of it. Buffy followed the motions with her eyes, her brow furrowing.

"Tara?" Willow asked, tone much the same as before.

Tara pulled something out of the chest, turning with the chain of the amulet clenched in her hand, the diamond sparkling where it dangled.

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa!__"_ Xander exclaimed. "You can't be thinking— She can't have that thing!"

Tara let out a long breath through her nose, the determined expression never leaving her face even as Buffy heard her heart speed up.

"We won't have to worry about her anymore if she has it," Tara said. Buffy blinked, knowing she wasn't the only one who'd noticed the lack of hesitation as she spoke.

"Huh? Not following over here," Xander said.

Tara shook the amulet, the chain making a choked jingle. "This. T-the S-stone of B-blood and B-bone."

Xander's eyebrows went up. "Still not following."

"T-t-that's the t-translation. T-this amulet is w-why B-Buffy has her soul."

Xander looked from Tara, to Buffy, and back to Tara before finally looking at Willow. "Let me say again; huh?"

But Willow was starting to look convinced. "Kostheshr Hekmon. Proto-Indo-European words, right? Tara, why do you know so much about it?"

Tara shook her head. "I-I-I don't know." She looked confused again. "B-but it d-definitely belongs to Buffy."

"Then let me have it back," Buffy said, voice soft. The translated name of the amulet bothered her—she had a ton of questions for Fake Angel when she got out of here.

Willow and Tara were still looking at one another, expression intent enough that Buffy wondered if they were talking psychically. If they were, Xander hadn't been included.

"Well I vote '_hell_ no' for giving the super powered vampire something that'll make her stronger."

Taking the necklace from Tara, Willow ran a finger across the face of the diamond. "It doesn't have any power, itself. If I didn't know what it was, I'd think it was just a piece of really expensive jewellery."

"Okay. Back up," Xander said, making an angry gesture with his hands. "Giles said she had to have stolen it from somewhere. Now you're telling me it, what, just appeared for her like some magic quest item? Come on. Next you're going to tell me leprechauns exist."

"Don't be ridiculous, Xander. Buffy's already told us where it came from," Willow said.

Xander looked at her, but Willow was already crossing the room. She stopped at the edge of the circle, standing right in front of Buffy.

"Tell me I'm not wrong."

"About?" Buffy asked, her eyes on the amulet. It looked so innocuous with Willow holding it. Just a piece of jewellery, nothing to see here. Right.

"If I give you this back, you'll just take off. No destruction, no one gets hurt."

"Won't even know I was here," Buffy replied. "But you'll probably be left with soulless Buffy."

Gathering the amulet up into her hand, Willow crossed into the circle. She crouched down in front of Buffy, meeting her eyes and Buffy gave her a wry smile, even as Willow's nearness brought her hunger back to the surface. Willow looked tired. They all did.

"We can deal with you. Er. Her. You know." She extended her hand, opening her fingers to display the diamond on her palm.

Buffy nodded, reaching out and taking it, a bit of a tremble in her hand. "I get it," she said, feeling like that was some sort of weird ceremony at the end of a test. If it was, the Powers were going to hear about it.

The chain trailing over her hand, Buffy stared at the amulet, sparkling in the light but cool in her grip. The demon's influence quieted, the pressure of the hunger dimming like a bad radio signal, letting Buffy relax a little. Willow retreated to stand beyond the barrier the circle in the floor made, but she gave Buffy a brief, supportive smile as she went. Buffy returned it, a bit more of the strain of holding back the demon leaving her once the redhead was out of easy reach.

'_It__'__s __seriously __sucky __here. __Take __me __out,__'_ she thought at the amulet, staring at the stone. Waiting, just waiting for it to do anything at all.

Buffy made a frustrated noise in her throat when nothing happened, ignoring her friends' recoil when it came out more of a growl than anything else. She looked up at Willow.

"Think you need to get rid of the circley spell," she said, gesturing at the floor.

Willow hesitated, looking at Tara and then Xander, who swallowed and shook his head. Buffy didn't think she'd be willing to do what she was asking either, so she didn't blame Xander, but she needed to get out of here.

Willow _hmm_ed, gaze going a bit distant as thought she were studying something instead of staring at the wall somewhere behind Buffy—probably recalling the page she got the spell from. "There's nothing there, Buffy."

Xander glared at the back of Willow's head, but the witch was smiling.

"…Oh," Buffy muttered. "There goes that theory."

Willow trusted her, though. At least to some extent, Willow trusted her, and she felt just a little lighter in the face of that trust. Light enough that the amulet in her hand started to feel warm. She slipped it over her head, picturing the Time Chamber, Fake Angel standing at its centre, in her mind's eye. Closing her eyes, Buffy focused on that image.

Her own abilities were the only thing standing in her way, and she was determined not to screw up again.

Her concentration fragmented when the door to the Magic Box opened, another heartbeat joining them and Buffy's eyes flew open. She nearly turned to see who it was before noticing the lengthening of the shadows in the room. Blue streaks shot through the black, the world fragmenting before her eyes, so much less smooth than the black of her entry to this place.

"Willow!" she exclaimed, trying to put a halt to the process, knowing it was futile. Something had dawned on her though, even as the world fell away around her. "Will, try the gypsy curse again!"

Whatever Willow said in response was lost to Buffy's ears and Willow probably couldn't hear her either, but she tried again anyway. "Angel's curse! You can work it!"

The blue-shot black cracks took over her vision, blocking out sound before she could catch any sort of response from Willow. It would have to do. Maybe she'd helped this reality get back on track, maybe not.

Still wondering, hoping the little trip could help _someone,_ at least, Buffy let the amulet pull her back to—what was hopefully—the Time Chamber. There was no falling sensation, just smooth transition like when she'd come from Acathla's hell.

Too late, maybe, she wondered what she was going to return as, since she hadn't seen Buffy-as-a-human since before she'd entered the alternate Sunnydale.

Then it just didn't matter.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Buffy opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling above her for a long time before realising why it looked familiar. It was the ceiling above her bed in the Power's dimension. She'd made it back. Even better, her chest was rising and falling, heart beating, and she couldn't smell everyone who had entered the room in the past three weeks.

Buffy raised a hand in front of her face. It looked normal, and that was encouraging enough for her to sit up, letting the blanket fall down into her lap.

Okay, she was still wearing the corset. Really nothing wrong with that. It meant the avatar had probably just brought her here and been unsure enough about what to do next that he'd just left her. And it meant he had boundaries. That was nice.

Buffy threw her legs over the side of the bed and stretched, raising both arms above her head and grinning when there was no pain in her shoulder.

"Slayer healing: 1. Vampire healing: 0," she said aloud, looking around the room again from the better angle. The change of clothes meant she couldn't just shrug the whole thing off as a dream. She'd really been in some other reality, and she'd really been a vampire. Whatever had happened, though, had been reversed when she'd come back here—she was pretty sure of that.

She rose and crossed to the mirror, running her hands across her face as she went. Her reflection stared back at her, tired and in desperate need of a shower, but definitely reflection-y and not nearly as pale as she expected she'd been as a vampire. Human again. Good.

Giving herself a once over, Buffy did a little spin in front of the glass. The bandage she'd been wearing was gone, the wound beneath completely vanished, and there wasn't a trace of the sunburn she'd suffered anywhere on her skin.

_'__Vampy __Buffy__'__s __clothes __don__'__t __even __look __that __bad,__'_ she noted, though there was no way in hell she was going to be making any drastic wardrobe changes of her own.

Nodding at her reflection, Buffy turned to the door. Alone in her head, herself again as far as she could tell—it made everything else just details. Details that would get her home, but details nonetheless.

Very important details.

"Music facing time, I guess," she muttered, opening the door and stepping out into the chamber beyond.

The avatar sat on the edge of one of the long chairs, his attention up on the Balance mosaic, face passive and without a trace of acknowledgement of her even though he had to have heard her approach. Quirking an eyebrow she followed his gaze, not noticing anything really different in the movements of the figures on the wall, especially nothing big enough to take so much of his attention.

"Any new players?" she asked. He turned his head, surprise registering in his face for just a moment before it returned to impassive.

"None who will amount to anyone of consequence," he replied, rising. "How do you feel?"

"Peachy."

He frowned. "Stand there a moment," he said, coming forward to pace a circle around her. Uncomfortable, Buffy swivelled her head, trying to keep him in sight.

"What was that about?" she asked when he stood in front of her again.

The avatar sighed, rubbing his creased brow, frown on his face. The gesture was very human. "You realise this is a huge setback for us."

"What is?" Buffy asked, bristling. "Went in, got out. Took a little detour through an alternate universe on the way, but no biggie."

When she finished speaking, Fake Angel looked like he might bite something. The anger cleared from his face a moment later, though, leaving him shaking his head with his hand back up, pinching the bridge of his nose. The motion was more reminiscent of Giles than Angel, but it made her smile a little regardless.

"Alternate universe," he repeated, his voice hollow.

"Yep," Buffy said.

The avatar was silent for a very long moment, just staring at her, calculation in his eyes. Feeling a bit as though she were being weighed—or maybe reweighed—against some great cosmic scale, Buffy squirmed.

"It wasn't an alternate anything," he said finally, gesturing for her to follow him back to the sitting area.

Frowning, Buffy remained where she was. "Sure it was. The one where I got turned all bumpy and fangy."

The avatar shook his head, the weighing look gone from his face and replaced by a hint of amusement in his eyes as he perched on the edge of one of the chairs. His lips remained drawn and stern, though. Impressed, but trying to appear as though he wasn't? She couldn't tell.

"The place you were in, where you were a vampire," he paused, and Buffy gestured for him to continue. "It wasn't an alternate reality. It was a Nightmare Fold."

"A nightmare what-y?" Buffy asked, dubious.

"Nightmare Fold. A gap between realities, outside of space and time."

She came to join him, sitting on the chair across from his, a soft, disbelieving noise escaping her lips. "If you're trying to tell me nicely that it all happened in some laundry room in my head, try again. It was real."

"I didn't say it wasn't."

Buffy frowned at him and crossed her arms. When he didn't respond, she brought her legs up onto the chair and leaned back into it.

"So it was some big testy thing, then? See how long it takes Buffy to snap and eat a Scooby?" she asked. She was going for casual with the question, but since Fake Angel took _everything_ as though it were dire, she couldn't quite tell whether he'd registered that or not.

"No, of course not. Nightmare Folds…" he trailed off, again looking like he was grasping for words. "They're supposed to be inescapable. They drag you down farther and farther until you just don't have the will to escape anymore."

She gave him a sceptical look. "I'm not going to say it wasn't completely ruled by Murphy, but it wasn't _that_ bad."

"No one's ever escaped after they were swallowed by a Nightmare Fold," he stressed. "Even the Powers and their agents…" he shook his head. "What you did was impossible."

Buffy let out a humourless laugh. "Yep. Buffy Summers: doer of all things impossible since 1981."

The avatar shook his head. "You don't understand how—"

"Your parents, or creators or whatever told you stories about your own personal bogeyman. I get it. But the monster under the bed is usually lurking outside the window waiting to be invited in. Or in a mask your mother thought would be a nice addition to her bedroom décor, but… never mind."

"You don't want to believe me."

"Hey, I'm here. I got out. I found help, and I got out."

Fake Angel's eyes narrowed for a moment; then he looked away from her and back up at the mosaic. "We'll have to revisit this later. We don't have the time right now."

He rose, gesturing for her to follow him to an alcove off of the chamber that she hadn't noticed before. And since she made a point of knowing where all exits were…

"This was so not here before," she said as they passed beneath the archway.

The avatar placed his hand on the tapestry hanging in front of them, his palm covering a central decal full of symbols she didn't recognise. They looked vaguely familiar though, so maybe she'd seen them in a book of Giles'. One of those ones she was really supposed to pay attention to, but just never had.

_'__Yeah, __too __busy __chasing __the __destined-to-be-doomed __social __life __to__ pay __attention __to __dead__ languages __that __so __would __not __have __kept __past-Buffy __alive __in __a __pinch __anyway.__'_

"I need you to close your eyes," Fake Angel said.

Buffy flicked her gaze from the magic dulling the colours of the tapestry to his face and back, watching magic ripple outward from where his hand was pressed against the decals.

"Close my— Why?" she asked, looking up at him with narrowed eyes. Mysterious door. Fake Angel playing at being all-secretive-avatar-of-the-Powers again. Maybe assuming she'd get some sort of break after falling unconscious out of an alternate universe—Nightmare Fold, whatever—had been wrong to do.

The avatar's countenance was patient, but one of his feet tapped against the stone floor and he'd probably have crossed his arms if he weren't pouring power into… well, whatever the tapestry was.

"Please, just trust me," he growled, voice strained. Buffy stared at him, only just now noticing a bead of sweat gathering near his temple.

She shut her eyes, eyelids twitching when the avatar slipped a hand under her elbow and tugged her forward.

"Bit of explainage here?"

"In a moment," the avatar murmured. His voice flowed over her the way Angel's always had and Buffy couldn't help it—she shivered. She shivered, and Fake Angel gave the softest of chuckles.

"Keep your eyes closed," he said, his words reaching her as though from some distance, though his hand was still on her elbow. She felt him move forward and moved to follow, frowning when he held her back. Her eyelids twitched again, the urge to open them and look around growing.

"What's—"

"Trust me," the avatar interrupted. Buffy scowled at him as best she could with her eyes squeezed tight to keep from peeking. Fake Angel just laughed again.

"You keep saying that," Buffy muttered, following when the avatar slid his grip from her elbow to her hand and led her forward.

"Because you don't," he replied. His voice had moved closer again (or she'd been pulled closer to him—she couldn't quite tell), but the muffled quality it had remained.

Everything started to make a bit more sense when the hand he held started to feel cold and detached, numbness spreading up from the tips of her fingers as he led her closer and closer to the tapestry. She probably didn't want to see what was causing the numbness. When it kept spreading upward, though, without her really moving forward and without her able to tell what was going on, Buffy panicked.

Balking, she planted her feet, tugging at her numb hand to free it, pretty sure the avatar had tightened his grip against her struggles when she had no luck getting it back. Unable to feel her arm from the elbow down and only meeting jarring resistance in her shoulder as she pulled back, trying to get away from the tapestry, Buffy opened her eyes.

White blindness met her vision, and even though logic told her Fake Angel had to still be holding onto her hand, Buffy felt alone. Worse, the complete deprivation of her senses had her diving off the crane again, with the same white light surrounding her. Any moment her eyes would fly open again and she'd be surrounded by blackness, her nose and mouth full of rot filled velvet.

Buffy's chest hurt, and time was slowing down for a moment that lasted forever and only a split second all at once before she was falling, pain in her chest spreading to her tailbone as well. Darkness surrounded her, but the only scent reaching her nose was old stone and dust. Then arms folded around her, familiar in their feel but a lot more timid in their touch than she was used to, and the smell of something a little different than vampire met her nose.

Buffy opened her eyes and blinked away the darkness, feeling some thrill deep within her at how easy it was to force it to retreat. Half sprawled on the floor, the ache in her tailbone receding and her breath coming to her more slowly as her fit passed, Buffy looked up. Her eyes searched the tapestry—solid again—and then slid to Fake Angel. He pulled away when she met his gaze.

"What was that?" he asked, not sounding like he really wanted to know, but voice carrying a gentle enough tone that she might've shared if she were at all willing to.

"Somehow thinking I should be asking _you_ that."

"Buffy, please."

Ignoring him Buffy stood, brushing dirt from the seat of her pants, feigning lack of concern even in the face of his kicked puppy dog look. It wasn't as easy to ignore as she'd hoped, and it _had_ been a good question. Because, sure, she'd revisited dying in nightmares before, but an episode like that, when she'd been completely conscious… That was a new one.

"Buffy?"

"Know what? This Slayer needs a nap. Rain check?"

Buffy could feel him glaring at her back as she walked away, tail between her legs, but she couldn't bring herself to care. He wanted an explanation she couldn't give, but maybe she could think something up that would appease him for a while.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

The course of the next few hours saw Fake Angel come by her door more than once. The visits weren't frequent—at least, not so much that she could justify berating him for them—but they were at a perfect enough interval that she couldn't take the nap she'd decided she desperately needed.

He'd made it clear that the Powers didn't stand for 20-minute catnaps, but Buffy had pretty much reached her limit for the amount of instructions, orders and tests she could take. She knew—somewhere in her mind, anyway—that Fake Angel was doing as he was told. For that matter, the amount of autonomy he had over his actions and how his orders were carried out was all up in the air too. Unless he was actually an incarnation of the Powers instead of just their agent, Fake Angel wasn't the one she should be carrying out her petty tirade against.

Then again, bitching at the employees was the best way to get attention from management.

A rap at the door followed her musing and Buffy groaned, grabbing her pillow and pulling it over her head so she didn't have to look at Fake Angel when he came into the room.

"Wow. Juvenile, much?"

Confused by both the word choice and very female voice, Buffy flung the pillow off her face to stare at the woman standing in the doorway. Staring back at her with her arms folded and a sour expression on her face that said she wanted to be anywhere else was Cordelia Chase.

"You're way more likely to wear me down in your Angel skin," Buffy said, eyes on the pillow where it had landed near the end of the bed. Cordelia scoffed.

"He's still waiting for you to come around. I'm not as patient."

"You're expecting me to believe that you're actually Cordelia?" Buffy asked, dubious.

"I don't care if you _believe _me. I'm just expecting you to get your tacky polyester blend ass out there so the world doesn't end."

"Hey, these aren't my pants!"

Cordelia gave her outfit a cursory glance.

"Why are you— _How_ are you even here?" Buffy demanded, determined to change the subject before Cordelia could start in on the borrowed corset.

"Believe it's me now, huh?" Cordelia said, rolling her eyes and crossing the room to pick up the pillow. Buffy reached a hand up and snatched it from the air when Cordelia threw it back at her.

"Call it reasonable suspension of disbelief."

Another eye roll. "Strings were pulled _way_ above me and I was dragged in here because for some crazy reason, the Powers think I wanted to talk to you."

"Why _you_, Cordelia?"

"Hello, ascended Higher Being, here. Keep up, Summers."

Buffy let it go. She could talk to Fake Angel about whatever had happened to Cordelia—if she was really talking to Cordelia—later. And once she got home, she could call _real_ Angel and… well, she wasn't really sure.

"Keeping up. Also, taking a nap. I need a break. You can tell him that."

"Are you _never_ going to grow up? There's an apocalypse brewing, and you're picking your _beauty__sleep_ over it? I mean, not that you don't need it, but seriously for the little it will help—"

"Would you shut up?" Buffy interrupted, the tirade causing a headache to begin blossoming at her temple. She just wanted to _sleep._ "Powers dimension. Seems a pretty much apocalypse-free zone."

Cordelia threw up her hands, and for a moment Buffy thought she might actually just storm out and give her a break. No such luck, though.

"God! I thought _I _was the one who's in a coma, on life support and brain dead, but you? You're just plain brain dead."

"I'm not—"

"Figuratively, dumbass."

Buffy's quickened heart rate slowed again at the reassurance that she was not, in fact, dead. Tucking the pillow beneath her head, she lay back, gazing at Cordelia from the corner of her eye and hoping that the other woman would just take a hint and leave.

"So, what's the next stop of the apocalypse world tour then, now that Sunnydale's off the map?"

"L.A."

She shot back up, her sharp focus melting away after a moment. "And I need to be there? Angel and his team can handle it, I'm sure."

Cordelia snorted. "Oh come on. You should know better than anyone that Angel needs someone pointing him in the right direction."

Buffy frowned at her. "Angel's track record for actually listening to me isn't very good."

"I would've thought you'd get less dense after high school, but apparently not. Let me spell it out for you: I am no longer there to keep Angel's head on straight and someone needs to take my place. The PTB decided you fit the bill. So suck up your issues and deal with it."

"That's what this is about?" Buffy demanded. "I got pulled away from all of my other responsibilities to play sidekick to my ex, and first alternate to a ghost to boot? You've _got_ to be kidding me."

"Babysitting your gaggle of Slayerettes is not more important than stopping the apocalypse!" Cordelia exclaimed.

"No? Well it's a hell of a lot more important than dropping everything to go to L.A. and hold Angel's hand. He's a big boy. If he needs me—and I'm _sure_ he doesn't—he knows what the phone looks like."

Again she thought—hoped—Cordelia was about to turn and storm out. The brunette wore a sour, frustrated scowl anyway; one that Buffy was more than happy to have caused because she felt just as miserable and frustrated as Cordelia looked. Or, well, a lot more miserable but she'd take what she could get.

"Stop being a selfish brat."

"I'm trying to take a nap, Cordelia. I'm not backing away from destiny. I'm not trying to retire. I just want a nap."

Cordelia's sour scowl didn't falter. "I am not leaving this room until you do, so you might as well get up and get out there."

"Who do you think you are? My mother?"

"I _wish_ your mother was here to set you straight!"

Buffy groaned. Giving in would get Cordelia off of her case, at least, and maybe then she'd be able to actually get some rest that much sooner. And wow, was her inner monologue whiny today.

Still meeting Cordelia's glare with her own, Buffy pushed herself out of the bed, twisting her lips, annoyed, at the smug look Cordelia's glare melted into.

"What, not going to hold my hand to make sure I don't run back and hide under the covers?" Buffy asked, more than able to hear how harsh and bitchy her tone was, and not really caring about it.

Cordelia stood by the door, arms folded over her chest, still looking smug. It took a lot of effort not to unleash the right hook she was choking back. The bigger person. She could be the bigger person; even if it meant throttling the whiny inner sixteen year old that wanted nothing to do with whatever the Powers wanted.

Okay, make that fifteen. Sixteen-year-old Buffy would be all over anything to do with Angel.

Cordelia followed her from the bedroom, closely enough on her heels to be just out of her line of sight. There was something not quite right with the way Cordelia tingled in her Slayer senses, and it was driving her crazy. Higher Being, huh? Whatever that meant.

"The Powers can't be paying you enough stardust to be my babysitter," Buffy said when Cordelia had followed her halfway across the Balance Chamber.

Fake Angel was seated in the same chair he'd been in when she'd woken up after returning from Nightmare-Sunnydale, as though he hadn't been relentless in bothering her since she'd retreated to her room. He looked over at them as they approached, then back at the scene on the wall. He contemplated the mural a lot, but try as she might, Buffy couldn't find the fascination in it.

The avatar looked over at them again, this time standing, his attention fully on Cordelia. "Thank you," he said with a nod.

She waved a hand. "Oh, you totally owe me," she replied, and Buffy's eyes narrowed at something in her voice. The words shouldn't have seemed any deeper than an exchange of pleasantries and them telling her how difficult she was. Something about it, though—and she wished she could figure out what that something was—left her feeling like she'd missed something.

"I'm outta here," Cordelia said, waving at Fake Angel as she turned and retreated, angling toward the Time Chamber.

"Hey, wait a sec!" Buffy exclaimed, ignoring the avatar when he approached her and spinning to glare at Cordelia. "That's it? Big warning about 'the' apocalypse and then you just take off without any more details!"

"Has Watcher ever been my job title?" Cordelia asked without breaking stride—let alone turning. "Talk to Angel. Talk to _both_ Angels."

She'd reached the Time Chamber door and as Buffy watched she simply melted through the thick wood, body fading as though it hadn't been solid at all. It made Buffy cringe, the hair at her nape rising as she spun back to face Fake Angel, outrage bubbling in her.

"If this whole thing is to turn me into some sort of Casper wannabe, I _still_—"

"Buffy, it's alright," the avatar interrupted. "Your destiny and Cordelia's cross but they're very different. You aren't ascending. You won't ascend. It isn't in the path you're on or any of those possible from where you stand now."

She kept a wary eye trained on his features, searching them for a lie, even as he started to lead the way back to the tapestry. "Fine," she said, letting it go—at least for now—because she wasn't going to get anywhere if Fake Angel didn't want to tell her anything. "Explain the magic hanging carpet."

He gave her a small smile. "The next stage of your training requires us to be through this door," he said, indicating the tapestry.

Buffy blinked at him. Never mind that it didn't look like a door—and if it was one she didn't even want to know what kind of weird in-between place it led to—but the _next_ stage of her training? She didn't think she'd even gone beyond the first stage—getting herself sucked into the bogeyman's lair, whether she'd gotten out or not, didn't seem like it counted. And hadn't Fake Angel already said she'd set the schedule way back?

"This is when you elaborate," she suggested.

He nodded. "Your abilities as the Slayer aren't enough for you to serve in the Champion role the Powers have selected you for," he said. He pressed his hand to the tapestry as he spoke and Buffy watched, fascinated despite the fear it sparked in her.

"Uh huh. The Powers that Be don't care about Slayers. Blah blah blah. If I'm not good enough, why pick me?"

"That isn't what I said," he murmured, extending his free hand to her. "Do you think you can do this, this time?"

"Numbness in limbs one hundred percent normal?" she asked, reaching for but not taking his hand, her mind stuck on the lack of sensation that had seeped into her arm the last time they'd done this. When he nodded, she let her fingers fall to his palm.

"You still trust me," he remarked, sounding a bit in awe of it.

Did she? Buffy didn't know. The Angel costume he wore still wreaked havoc on her mind, never mind what it was doing to her emotions.

"Don't need to give you a reason to call back Cordelia Almighty," she said and closed her eyes, clenching the lids together so she wouldn't accidentally see that white light again.

She wasn't dead. She wasn't dying. And whatever was on the other side of this wall was apparently going to help her stop 'the' apocalypse.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Being pulled through the mysterious-fading-tapestry thingy turned out to be just as uncomfortable as Buffy had thought it was going to be. Even knowing nothing was going wrong—at least according to Fake Angel—her limbs turning numb and the subsequent inability to control them as the wall shifted like molasses spread a thrill of panic through her that took a lot more control than she was proud of to fight against.

Once they were through to the other side of the barrier with no exit from the room in sight, Buffy wasn't entirely sure that putting up with the transition had been worth it.

"It's… empty," she said, taken aback by the sleek marble floor that stretched before them and the plain beige walls enclosing the room. When Fake Angel didn't respond, she spun to look at him, narrowing her eyes at his bored expression.

"Let me guess. I have to figure this one out myself."

He didn't say anything.

"Great," Buffy muttered, turning back to survey the room again, her arms folded across her chest. Some sort of test in a big empty room and no hints as to what she was supposed to be doing.

The wall they'd come in through had solidified again; stone brick without the tapestry covering, so it probably wasn't the way back out of here. Finding the exit, like she'd had to when she'd first been brought to this dimension—and, in fact, like most of her other tests had been so far—was probably all that she had to do. Probably.

Buffy started forward, looking side to side as she made her way across the room, not seeing any differentiation in floor or walls to indicate a starting point. There weren't even any windows in this room for her to climb up to and escape from.

Once at the far side of the room Buffy turned to glare at the avatar, finding him right behind her and scowling more deeply.

"So this is some sort of training."

He nodded.

"Big empty room, no distinguishing marks to speak of…" she trailed off, hoping he might say something, but she got nothing but a steady look in response.

"Okaaay then," she muttered after another moment of unresponsiveness.

Turning back to her task, Buffy tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. There was some sort of painting spread across the entire length of the room, the images in it thrashing and surging forward and falling back in a manner reminiscent of the mosaic in the Balance Chamber. Curious, she watched it for a long while, not really understanding what she was seeing, but able to figure out enough to know that the darker figures were probably the bad guys, the light figures interspersed with them Champions for the Powers. There was even a little painted person in the middle that might have been her.

The Buffy-figure moved differently when she focused on it, sprinting from the midst of the frantic motions of the mural and sliding from the ceiling down onto one of the plain walls, descending from above until it was set in the wall just slightly higher than Buffy's eye level.

Taking a step back she raised an eyebrow at it, trying—unsuccessfully—to glance back at Fake Angel while still keeping the painted person in her sight.

The painted image came more into focus as she watched and Buffy's eyes widened as it slowly but surely went from a blurry blob to a painted-mirror-image of herself. Painted Buffy reached into the front pocket of her pants—the same pants Buffy herself was wearing—and pulled out an object that was unmistakably Angel's Claddagh ring; the same one Buffy currently still had in the same pocket.

Buffy's gaze met her painted counterpart's and Painted Buffy smiled, reaching the hand holding the ring up and _out_ of the wall, extending one finger and placing the tip of it in the centre of Buffy's forehead before she could react and dive out of the way. Her attempt to fall backward was stopped, regardless, by someone bracing her waist from behind.

Then Buffy's eyes were closing because the painted figure's eyes had closed and an image played on the back of Buffy's eyelids. She watched herself crouched over Angel—real Angel, still in Acathla's hell—doing something with the amulet and the Claddagh ring that made the ring glow brightly for just a moment before image-Buffy slipped the ring onto Angel's finger.

Image-Buffy took her hand away and the ring glowed again, the glow engulfing Angel for just a moment before he vanished entirely.

Buffy stumbled back and away, trying to flee even though she was being held in place, not understanding.

"Don't panic. Don't worry. This is what your training has led to so far. This is the first stage of your becoming ready for the final stages." The avatar spoke in that strange, deep voice she'd only heard from him a couple of times before, his tone carrying an otherworldly resonance that sent shivers coursing up and down her spine as she tried to work out what, exactly, it was that he was saying.

The image the painting had shown Buffy felt like a memory, and as her eyes went wide, trying to register and align what she'd seen with her actual memories, Buffy realised that they were back in the Balance Chamber and no longer in the weird room beyond the tapestry at all. Fake Angel still stood behind her, his hands braced on her waist where they had been when she'd tried to back away from painted-Buffy's touch.

"Are you ready?" he asked softly, dropping his hands a moment before she pushed them off herself. His voice was back to normal and she spun to look up at him.

"Ready for what? To break a whooole bunch of these rules you've said are in place and that I have to be all careful to obey so that I don't mess up anything in history?" she glared at him through her rant, still trying to come to terms with what she'd seen.

"For your final test," the avatar intoned. "You saw what she showed you. You've heard what was said in there."

"Yeah, and what was with you going from mute-guy to possessed-by-the-voice-of-God-guy?"

He frowned at her, and the old default reaction was enough to calm her down somewhat.

"How can that be the final test?" she demanded. "The First—"

"Rescued Angel from Hell?" the avatar asked, sounding unimpressed.

"Well Angel definitely believed it did," Buffy retorted. "And don't you think if it had been me, he might have remembered that?"

"Who says he didn't?" The enigmatic delivery had Buffy's next words stopped dead in her throat for her to swallow. She let out an unamused bark of laughter.

"So for years Angel's thought, what, that the First dressed itself up as me and then rescued him, just to mess with his mind?"

The avatar stared her down. "Try again."

Buffy threw her hands up. "You're saying he knew it was me."

"A _version_ of you, yes."

Shaking her head, Buffy turned to face the mosaic at the end of the room, scratching absently at her shoulder. The darker side of it wasn't gaining as much ground on the light side as it had been when she'd first arrived, but the halves were still obviously uneven. "How've you decided, all of a sudden, that I'm up to your specs?"

"It was never my decision to make."

"No clue about how the boss' mind works, huh?"

He let out a huff of laughter. "I've an idea," he offered in a tone that said she wasn't going to hear what that idea was. Buffy just nodded, not at all impressed with how this conversation was going.

"So, I go into the Time Chamber, pop into Acathla's Hell, channel Willow to help me with some magics and get to head home."

"You don't get help," he replied.

Buffy waved her hand. "I didn't mean _literally_ channel Willow," she replied, turning to look at him.

"I meant, I can't tell you how to do what you have to do."

Oh. That implied she'd missed something, and that the painted vision of herself from the Powers hadn't given her the whole story. Great.

"You'll figure it out, Buffy. You've already done it. You already know how."

_You__'__ve __already __done __it._ The words echoed in her head a moment before Buffy realised where she'd heard them before. The series of weird dreams she'd been having, every night she'd been here—Angel had said those words to her in one of the very first ones.

"How much is going on here that you haven't told me about?" Buffy demanded. "What do you mean 'You've already done it'?"

"I mean just what I said. Angel's safe, right?"

She frowned at him. "You're telling me I can't possibly mess this up, because it's already happened."

Just for a moment he looked like he wanted to nod, but then he shook his head. "No," he replied. "Because there are a million ways this task can go wrong."

"But also a million ways it can go right, right?" Buffy asked, giving him what she hoped was a winning smile.

He shrugged uneasily. "I suppose."

He supposed. Better than a 'no,' anyway, though his body language weighed more on there being one, single correct way of doing this.

Gathering herself, her mind playing the image the Powers had planted in it over and over again, Buffy turned to face the entrance to the Time Chamber. Go in, somehow figure out how to rescue Angel, do it, and get out. A lot more difficult than the last task she'd had, and look at how badly she'd screwed that one up.

"Okay," Buffy said, clapping her hands and pushing aside the mega doubts she'd started collecting about this. "Guess now's as good a time as any to make past-me the vampire-babysitting master."

A hand on her shoulder, though, almost immediately halted her progress toward the door. The avatar wore an amused smile when she turned to face him.

"What?"

"You keep saying you're tired," he murmured.

Her eyebrows crept up her forehead. "Uh huh…" she said, giving him a curious look as she trailed off.

"Come on." He tilted his head toward the entrance to the tower he'd led her down when she'd first come here—the one with the bridge at the top that connected to the training room.

"Time Chamber that way." Buffy pointed in its direction as she spoke.

"I know."

"So, then…?"

"I think I promised you something a little while ago and never delivered."

Buffy blinked at him, trying to figure out what that could possibly be. "Pretty sure there wasn't anything else on the training agenda that we've been putting off. Is this about that weird freak-out over the tapestry last time, 'cause I know I called a rain check on it but—"

He cut her off with a finger across her lips.

"No, no. None of that. Calm down," he said when he'd moved the digit away. He started walking toward the tower door again, Buffy trotting to catch up with him.

"Am I going to like this surprise that you've mentioned before but now aren't telling me about?"

"I think so," he said with a bit of a laugh.

"You _think_? Oh, well, that's a definite no then."

"Buffy," he said, tone chiding though he was still laughing. "You're going to like it. There. Better?"

"Maaaybe," she said, fighting to keep a straight face as she drew out the vowel. "We'll see."

Fake Angel pushed open the door into the tower and pointed forward, indicating a hallway that extended past the curved, ascending staircase and ended in a glare of light she couldn't make out anything beyond. Buffy looked up at him with a frown. He looked far too amused for this to be some sort of training routine her memory was failing to remind her of.

"Big glowy lights and Buffy are not best friends right now," she said as they walked toward it.

"No?" he asked, not pausing in his stride. "This one isn't mystical, promise."

They'd reached the doorway and Buffy squinted, blinking water from her eyes as they tried to adjust to the brightness beyond the hallway. The doorway opened to an enclosed courtyard, the area ringed with trees and the air full of steam billowing up from bubbling water at the centre of the space. Buffy let out a laugh when she realised what she was seeing, beaming up at the avatar.

"Hot springs!" she exclaimed, prompting a smile from Fake Angel.

"Enjoy," he said, retreating. He'd mostly vanished beyond the doorway and back into the castle when his voice floated to her, "I told you that you'd like it."

"Yeah, yeah," Buffy called back, stripping off her corset and dropping it onto the already shed pants next to her. "One thing right, once!"


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

The bliss brought from soaking her sore, tired body in the pool was short-lived. Despite her attempts to stop it, Buffy's mind quickly went from blank with enjoyment to racing, trying to work through the little information Fake Angel had imparted upon her. Diving into hell to rescue Angel from it was a tall order. Sure, she'd done difficult things in the past—and things that were, arguably, a lot tougher—but this… this involved the magics the Powers had dumped on her. Magics that Buffy was still pretty sure were entirely random and not under her control at all.

And that? Well, that was all making this bath feel a lot like a last meal.

Groaning, Buffy slid further into the water, sinking down until the surface lapped at her chin and a strong, frustrated breath out through her nose caused the water to pucker. There _had_ to be more to this test that Fake Angel could tell her about. Then again, his directions hadn't worked all that well for her so far, and she really was more of a make-it-all-up-as-you-go-along girl, so maybe it was better off this way.

Question was, was she riding way too much on Fake Angel's hint that this couldn't go wrong, because in the past—_her_ past, anyway—it had already happened? He'd told her she'd already done it, and so had that dream.

That _dream_.

At the time, letting Fake Angel have his evasion of her question had been for the best. It went without saying that there was loads more going on than Buffy knew about—or would be told about—so a pointless argument during an otherwise semi-useful briefing? Not something she needed.

The avatar had made it pretty clear that he didn't have the clearance to tell her anything else concerning her Angel-rescue mission. He hadn't, however, said he couldn't tell her anything else about the Powers dimension as a whole—and maybe something about the dream she'd had that echoed his words so well.

With a long look across the surface of the water, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout, Buffy sighed and levied herself up and out of the pool. Perching on the edge of it, feet still trailing in the water, she reached behind her for the fluffy white towel that had come from who-knew-where. Wrapping it around her, Buffy rose to take in the area again, contemplating her options for clothes.

"Hey!" she called, turning and looking into the gloom beyond the doorway, trying to figure out if the avatar was lurking just out of sight and waiting. When no reply came she approached, holding a fistful of towel just above her chest to keep it tight around her.

"Hello? Fak—" Realising she'd been about to call the avatar—who had been nothing but the best at being nice that he could be—the nickname she'd given him in her head, Buffy shut up. "What am I supposed to be calling you, anyway?" she shouted instead.

"Pretty sure I told you when you first got here that I was Angel," he said, approaching from the end of the hall. Her glare was short-lived, interrupted by a surge of glee when she realised his outstretched hand held clothes.

"And then we established that you were _not_ Angel," Buffy said. "So, Fake Angel it is."

"You've been calling me that this whole time?"

"Yep," she snatched the clothes from his hand as she spoke. "Ooh! Pink!"

"You know, sometimes I wonder—"

"Why the Powers chose me? How I survived this long?" she asked, gesturing at him to indicate he should turn around so she could get dressed. Crossing his arms, he did.

"I wasn't going to say that."

Discovering a pair of underwear in the folds of the pants, Buffy pulled them and then the jeans on.

"The answer to both questions is: You tell me," she said, pulling on the sweater. Frowning, sure she was forgetting something, Buffy looked around a moment.

"I don't have the answer. Can I turn around?"

"Go for it," Buffy replied. With one hand she dug through the pile of abandoned vampire clothes, sliding her fingers into one of the pant pockets and coming back out after a bit of feeling with Angel's ring in her hand. "Going to need this, huh?" she asked.

"And this," he said, passing her the axe—the same one she'd collected from the pillar when she'd first arrived—he'd been holding in his other hand. His tone suggested he knew exactly where this line of questioning might lead. Smart vampire. God. Avatar. Whatever he was.

Feeling more herself in the new outfit, Buffy crossed her arms, her posture mimicking his. Angel's ring stayed clenched in her fist, the axe held limply in her other hand.

"So, things that are happening that Buffy," she pointed at herself, "is being kept in the dark about. And normally, that would be fine because who _really_ wants to be the packhorse carrying every little problem ever?"

Fake Angel looked wary.

"However, there's still this itty bitty problem of Buffy feeling like she isn't nearly well prepared enough to handle this thing.

"And!" she exclaimed over Fake Angel opening his mouth. "You know, I get it. You're being all censored by the Powers. But you can tell me some more about what's been going on that I'm missing."

His wary look turning into a torn one, the avatar watched her for a long moment. Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head. "You're going to keep pushing at this?"

Even knowing he couldn't see it, Buffy frowned at him. "Yep."

"Fine. It's…" he stopped and shook his head, looking back up at her like he wasn't really sure if his explanation was going to make any sense. "Time moves differently here."

"Different speeds for different dimensions. Got it."

"No, not like that." He made a bit of a helpless gesture. "I think I've already told you that this place exists outside of time."

She gave him a blank look.

"And that means that your perception of how time passes here isn't exactly… I suppose _accurate_ would be the best word."

Well, _that_ hadn't been what she'd expected to come out of his mouth. "And this all means, in terms the new recruit can understand?"

"Some of the things you've dreamt have actually happened. Everything's been set up to get you to this point, Buffy." He cut her off when she opened her mouth to interrupt. "I know it doesn't make sense," he said, making a bit of a slashing gesture with one hand, "but there's no other way to explain it. You were brought here, at this time, for a reason. Your training has centred around Acathla's dimension for a reason. I think—"

"That that reason is entirely clear now. Yeah, I get it."

"Do you?" he asked, sounding unsure. "Because, Buffy, this…"

Buffy held up a hand and he trailed off, giving her one of those lost little boy looks he reserved for when he didn't know what the hell to do with her. At least it probably meant that he wanted to try. Probably.

"I'm a tool to get Angel back where you need him. I _get __it_."

Fake Angel didn't argue, which was surprising, because she'd been almost certain that he was going to tell her she was wrong. After another moment where he didn't make any attempt at rebuttal, Buffy nodded and strode past him, stopping only when she was at the door into the Balance Chamber.

"Still haven't taught me to open the Time room. Need your key," she said without turning around.

"I'll be there in a moment," Fake Angel said. "Buffy, you're not just…"

Shaking her head, Buffy pulled open the door. "I'm a Slayer. _Just_ a Slayer. And you know what? I'm good with that. I can deal. You're the ones that can't."

Hearing the door fall shut with a slam behind her didn't make Buffy feel any better.

-8-

"Sorry I freaked back there," Buffy muttered a little while later, her gaze locked on the display of images in the Time Chamber's misty walls. She caught Fake Angel shifting out of the corner of her eye; surprised by the apology, maybe.

"You're not just a tool," he said after a moment, taking the invitation to open the topic back up. "You were chosen for a reason."

Buffy snorted. "If I heard Cordelia right, that reason is pretty Angel-centric." Pausing, she faced him, suspicious as something dawned on her. "I… am done after this. …Right?"

"You'll be going home, yeah," he replied. Buffy met his eyes.

"And I'll be done the task all this training's for, _right_?"

Fake Angel sighed. "Can we talk about this later? After you've…" he gestured toward the scenes playing around them.

Pulling her hair into a ponytail, Buffy rolled her eyes upward. "Yeah, yeah. I'll go pass your test and then we're going to have a serious talk about this 'Champion' gig."

"Don't get cocky. Just get through this," he said, looking relieved even as he chided her.

"Cocky? Me?" She let out a laugh. He just gazed at her, arms crossed, the remnants of the relieved look just covering an irritated one.

Buffy returned to the task at hand, running everything she knew about this test through her head. It wasn't much. It wasn't enough.

"What happens if I screw up?"

"Angel doesn't return to Sunnydale."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "But he _did_ return to Sunnydale. I was there. I remember it happening. Means I don't screw up."

"You also remember being a vampire, and that never actually happened," he pointed out.

"What— are you saying, if I do mess up—which I won't—it'll change everything and I'll be the only one to remember?"

"I don't want to fill your head with—"

"Answer me," Buffy demanded. "I'm the last person in the _world_ who needs things to be sugar-coated. What. Happens. To. My. World. If. I. Mess. This. Up?"

The instant his look turned pitying, Buffy knew she really didn't want the answer to the question, no matter how badly she needed to know it.

"You remember when I told you, back when you first went to Acathla's hell, that bringing Angel back at that point would create an alternate reality rather than a time paradox?"

She nodded, mind racing to find the punch line here before he could say it. She came up short; trying to conceive of all these conversations about realities and dimensions and times just made her brain hurt.

"Failing this task, not doing it just as it as done in your timeline, will cause the creation of one of those realities. To put it simply—" he raised his shoulders, not quite shrugging, looking uncomfortable "—when you _do_ return home, it will be to whatever reality suits your actions. To the timeline that was blazed by them. Whether it be a new one or your original universe."

"And the one I remember will fade out, Buffy-less and just in my memory like vampy-Buffy Sunnydale," she concluded, feeling a bit hollow. Too much on the line. His expression sombre, the avatar nodded.

Way too much on the line.

"Okay," Buffy said, a bit of a trill in her tone when the nerves slipped through. "So, no pressure then. Just have to do what painted-me did. No problem."

When she looked at Fake Angel he just nodded again, not offering the reassurance she'd hoped he would. He said she'd already done this, and that she already knew how, and the Angel in her dream had said the same thing. He was probably just trying to psych her out. Maybe it was an insurance thing: don't promise the initiate that she can get through anything and everything _just __in __case_.

Yeah, that's what it was. Sure.

"Wish me luck," Buffy muttered, stepping forward when she saw Acathla's dimension, Angel not visible in the frame but bound to be present there in it just as he'd been the first time she'd fallen through, though she knew it was a much later point in time. She couldn't even be sure this was the _right_ point in time, but she had to start somewhere, right?

The avatar put a hand on her shoulder, drawing part of her attention back around to him when he moved closer. "Uhh…"

The room's magics were already starting to wrap around her, making it hard for her to really see him as they began to pull her away, but she looked up at him anyway.

"Good luck," he muttered, and her jaw dropped a bit when she thought she felt—though the magics were too blinding for her to be able to see for sure—his lips brush across the top of her head.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

"Not a conversation I wanted to have," Buffy muttered, picking herself up from where the rough transition into Acathla's Hell had left her and dusting off her pants. Whatever the Powers had done when they'd made the avatar Angel-y, she was fairly certain he was supposed to remain impartial; indifferent like the Powers themselves. Kisses, even fond, friendly ones? Not so proving of impartialness.

Flipping the axe around in her hand and squeezing the handle to refocus, because what the avatar felt-or-didn't-feel about her was really not important right now, Buffy let her eyes fall on Angel.

He hung, limp, from shackles binding his wrists to the wall. Impossible to tell if he was conscious or not, but his eyes were shut, and it didn't particularly look as though he was bracing his weight at all—

Probably unconscious, then, and probably for the best, since he was in far worse shape than she remembered from their throw-down in the woods when he'd first come back from hell. He'd been feeding then, though, so that made sense.

_'__Focus, __Buffy.__'_

A well-placed swing of the axe broke through one of the chains, the metal-against-metal-against-stone sending a shower of sparks down and making enough of a racket to freeze Buffy in her tracks so she could peer over her shoulder. Not that she could see through the walls for anyone coming to investigate, of course. When no noise from outside of the cell met her ears, she let out a shaky breath, half nervous laugh, half sigh of relief, reminding herself that _this_ was the easy part. _This_ was the part she was good at.

Attention returned to Angel, Buffy frowned at the crumpled picture he made. With one of his arms free, Angel had fallen forward, leaving him hanging, weight pulling him away from the wall with his body supported only by the chain and shackle still bound to his left wrist. Grimacing at the awkward angle, she stood best she could beneath the looming form, one hand braced against his chest when he seemed to fall even further forward. A second swing of the axe split the remaining chain and Angel dropped, Buffy grunting at the force of his weight landing on her.

A bit of careful manoeuvring and she managed to lay him down on his side, her gaze fixed on his face, watching for any indication that he might've come awake. Not a twitch, but she could have sworn she'd heard some sound come from him under the clanging racket of the second chain snapping.

"Angel?" she whispered.

No response. Fine. Good, even. The bruising and unhealed gashes covering his skin didn't make Buffy desire any sort of consciousness for him.

She touched his cheek before retreating a few steps, digging in her pocket for his ring as she went. The sulphur scent in the air was getting cloying—or maybe she was just feeling the tiniest bit claustrophobic, being trapped in here with Angel in the state he was. At least the last time she'd been stuck here, she knew he'd recognised her.

"Okay…" she muttered, staring down at the ring in her hand. Holding it with two fingers, she touched the ring's emblem to the face of the amulet.

It didn't surprise her when nothing happened. It was all so par for the course now that she was even less surprised when she brought her gaze back around to Angel's face to find his eyes open and staring at her, a bit of a growl playing in his throat.

She must've held his gaze a moment too long.

Growl turned to an outright snarl, game face on and fangs bared, Angel leapt at her faster than he really should have been able to move. Buffy threw her arms out, palms flat, catching his chest and knocking him back with a push.

Angel hit the wall with a grunt and crumpled. Still looking at her; still focused on her with a bit of confusion in his expression, like he couldn't figure out why it hadn't taken more effort for her to stop him.

"Look, I know you're hungry but you can't—"

A side step and one-handed shove knocked him back on his face when he lunged again.

"—eat me," she finished, frowning.

He looked starved, now that it had dawned on her just why he might be attacking so vehemently. Starvation would explain why he looked so battered, too. Without blood, he couldn't heal properly—she'd learned _that_ much first hand.

"Angel. Try to focus on me for a minute."

Nothing. Well, nothing sane or remotely human, anyway. Just the same animal concentration he'd been fixing her with all along.

She should just knock him out and be done with it. Render him unconscious, so that she could focus on the task at hand—namely, sending him home—without having to continually fling him across the room to stop him ending up on top of her. In good conscience, though, she couldn't just stride over there and knock his head into the floor until he lost consciousness—whether it would be more convenient or not.

"Angel."

Still mostly lying prone where he'd fallen, he nevertheless had one leg pulled under him and arms starting to try to push himself back up. Buffy's heart moved at how weak he looked. A hundred years in hell, and how many of them had he spent in this state? She was willing to bet it was more than half.

"Angel," she prompted again, trying to get some sort of reaction out of him other than the snarl still playing on his lips.

When there was nothing after another moment, Buffy shook her head and folded her arms. She could see that he was regrouping, trying to get his bearings back as quickly as he could and maybe just the slightest bit surprised that she wasn't doing more to either run away or stop him entirely. Beyond that, though, they were at a standstill.

"I really don't want to—"

He was up again as soon as she started speaking. He rushed her and Buffy caught him, pushing his downward and cracking him across the back of his shoulders with the flat of her forearm. It was like she'd said something that he'd understood and didn't like. Maybe it was just speaking altogether, or speaking anything more complicated than his name—which he might have actually understood.

Angel practically bounced back to his feet when he hit the ground this time and Buffy actually felt herself smile, though whether that was because he'd gotten some spunk back or just a result of the new burst of adrenaline running through her, she couldn't say. Maybe he'd regained some of his awareness, despite everything else.

But then, maybe she was being overly optimistic, and maybe she'd actually forgotten more about Angel's state when he'd returned to Sunnydale than she thought she did, but as she slugged him across the cheek, the optimism made her feel a bit better.

Their grappling was short lived. A sound from behind her hit Buffy's ears and had her again throwing Angel away from her, toward the back of the cell and away from the door. He let out a pained noise when he landed and—for just a moment—Buffy hesitated, wanting to see if she'd done more damage than she thought.

The hesitation was just enough. Something hit her across the back, sending her flying forward, fall broken when she half-landed on top of Angel, who let out a low, pained groan.

Back on her feet in an instant, Buffy spun to face the demon that had hit her. Slight, horned and scarlet, the thing stared her down from where it stood in the doorway, as though trying to figure out where she had come from and what the easiest way to get rid of her would be—or subdue her, maybe, and give her her very own cell.

When the demon shifted, sort of tilting its head to one side and putting down the parcel it held under one arm, Buffy took a moment to scan the cell for where her axe had dropped. She dove, rolling toward it and grabbing it up in one hand as the demon straightened and rushed forward. Buffy's brow crinkled.

"I'm over here you blind—"

She cut off abruptly when the slim thing wrapped its hand around Angel's wrist, gripping across the raw skin the shackles had left behind. It heaved him, not even straining, up from the floor and threw him back on his back. Angel didn't react, just flopped where he had been thrown.

"Hey!" Buffy shouted. She let the axe fly from her hand, not sure of her target because she had _never_ seen a demon like this before and didn't have the slightest clue how to go about killing it. She just knew that she had to get the thing away from Angel.

She didn't like how quickly the fight had gone out of him. Really, she didn't like any of this, but at least when Angel had been spunky and fighting back even though he was out of his mind and hurt, she'd felt a bit better about her chances of doing all this _right_. Now, though… Well, maybe Angel would stay down long enough for her to make the amulet work its mojo and get him home.

The axe clattered to the floor, falling short of its target when the demon held up a hand. It just looked at Buffy, merely looked, but there was something in the eyes—which were green and oddly human and totally not complimented by the thing's skin tone—that Buffy really, really didn't like.

The demon barked something at her in whatever its demon language was and pointed at the wall Angel had been bound to. Buffy's eyebrows crept up her forehead.

"I really didn't like your taste in wall hangings, so I took it down."

The demon's stare narrowed and it raised a hand, palm out and facing her. Buffy didn't think much of it for a moment because the thing wasn't _doing_ anything; at least anything other than staring her down. Then something invisible was pressing against her and her feet weren't on the ground anymore and a second later she was winded, breath knocked from her when she struck the door. Telekinetic demon. Great.

Managing to get her feet under her and supporting herself with a hand against the wall, Buffy caught her breath. It hadn't taken all that long for her to regret throwing her only weapon away, but at least the demon hadn't decided to pick it up and try to use it. Maybe it didn't know how.

Maybe she should focus more on the fight than her internal monologue.

Buffy charged across the cell, braced against any new attack the demon might throw at her. She reached it and it grabbed her, hands scorching her arm where their skin touched, the smell of burning flesh starting to fill the cell. Buffy grit her teeth against the pain, kicking out a foot and managing to strike it in the side.

The demon barely reacted, grabbing her arm tighter until tears started to run from Buffy's eyes. Kicking out again, Buffy let her feet fall out from under her, free arm reaching for the axe on the floor. Still holding on, the demon fell with her, landing on top of her, and the heat it was emitting starting to scorch along her body almost instantly. Blindly grabbing, Buffy's hand wrapped around the handle of the axe and she swung.

The axe caught, the edge of it sliding into the demon's side and then refusing to go any further. It was enough. The thing released Buffy's arm and she was able to roll out from beneath it, pulling the axe out as she went.

A quick glance around the room as she regained her feet showed her Angel in a corner of the room, not too far from where they were fighting. He didn't move when she looked at him—in fact didn't look like he had moved at all since the demon had dropped him—and Buffy didn't spare him any more attention.

The demon returned to its feet, one of its hands on the gash in its side, though there wasn't any blood or ichor or any sort of thing flowing from the wound to actually indicate she'd hurt it in any way. It stepped toward her and Buffy raised the axe again. She wrinkled her nose when it didn't do anything more than raise its hand, holding it out, palm facing her.

Buffy lunged forward, swinging the axe. "Like I'm going to fall for that again!" she shouted. The axe came down on the demon's shoulder, this time slicing deeply enough that it took a sharp pull for her to get the flesh to release the blade. Another swing before the thing could even get its bearings back and the demon's head fell to the floor with a wet smack.

Sparing a glance for it as the body crumpled, but looking quickly away because (ew, ew, _ew_) its eyes were still open and staring at her, Buffy wiped the little blood—or whatever it was—on the axe off on the demon's pants.

Left arm stiff where the thing had burned her, Buffy nonetheless stretched the arm out a bit, trying to loosen the skin before it could really harden into an unusable claw. Then she turned back to face Angel, still fixing his captor with a narrow eyed stare.

"I guess we try this again," she muttered.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Angel stayed where he was during the time it took Buffy to drag the demon's body off to one side of the cell and roll the head over next to it. Worrying enough, considering how much he'd been trying to get at her before the thing had shown up. More worrying that he'd failed to really react at all when she'd slayed the thing.

"All the way back to square one," Buffy said. She frowned at Angel when he failed to react at all to the low words. Crouching down just out of arms reach, Buffy peered into his eyes. She shuddered at the lack of anything at all behind them.

Reaching forward even though she knew she risked provoking him, Buffy touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers, shaking her head when he didn't react to that either. It was like he'd completely drawn in on himself, away from everything that had happened as soon as the door had opened and the demon had come in.

"Angel?" she murmured. When he remained catatonic she straightened and reached for the amulet again. "Okay. Get him home. Easy."

Patting her pockets, Buffy cringed, starting to turn in circles and look at the ground as she realised that, at some point during all the fighting, she'd dropped the ring.

"You've gotta be kidding me. This is just. So. _Perfect._"

Frustrated and down on her hands and knees, ignoring the pain of her injured arm as best she could, Buffy pushed at the stirred up dirt on the floor, trying to figure out where the ring had fallen. The cell wasn't very big, but with two people and a corpse it had gotten significantly smaller, and that meant someone was probably laying on it. Great.

Feeling a bit frantic in her search, Buffy pushed herself around on her knees, running her hands along the ground, hoping to hit the bump of the ring. It had really only been chance that she'd found the thing the last time she'd been here, and then the cell had been empty; nothing to block her view of the floor except herself.

"Come on, come on…" she muttered, wondering how long Angel was going to stay catatonic and if she was just going to have to fight him all over if it took her too long to relocate the ring.

She glanced over at him with the thought, just to check that he hadn't moved. He hadn't. Satisfied, Buffy returned to her search, only to practically give herself whiplash spinning back to look at something by Angel's outstretched arm. The ring. It must have bounced when she'd dropped it, and in the right direction, at least.

On her feet again, Buffy raced over and scooped up the ring, staring down at it after sparing a compulsive glance at Angel. How was she supposed to do this? What had Fake Angel told her?

The first time she'd come here, he'd told her that they couldn't bring Angel back with them because the Time Stream didn't accept passengers. This task, then, seemed to her like it was bending the rules quite a bit. Or maybe not, since when she'd seen the vision of her—or painted-Buffy, anyway—doing this, she hadn't disappeared with Angel. So what had she done?

Maybe whatever magics she was supposed to work on the ring made it into some sort of weird pseudo-amulet thingy that would let Angel move through dimensions all on his own. Or maybe she was supposed to direct him, because there was no way he was anywhere near coherent enough to even get out of Acathla's hell on his own, let alone figure out where he was supposed to go and get there.

"Okay. So I need a weird guided portal thingy. Easy," Buffy muttered.

Not so easy. How was she even supposed to conceive of this? Get Angel from this point to the Sunnydale of five-ish years ago, using only a ring and a shiny time and space bending amulet, but without giving him the amulet and…

Buffy took a deep breath. The amulet seemed to work better when she'd thought less about what she was doing.

Taking off the amulet, Buffy held it in front of her in one hand, the ring sitting in her other palm beside it. Studying them both for a moment and feeling the amulet get warmer in her palm, Buffy nodded once. She held the image of the mansion as best she remembered it from back then in her head, thinking that picture at the amulet (and feeling stupid doing it).

Tipping her hand, Buffy let the ring slide from her palm and onto the face of the amulet. For a moment nothing happened, then the colour in the amulet began to swirl and move, spiralling beneath where the ring sat. Buffy squinted as the amulet's glow became brighter and brighter, until the brightness forced her to close her eyes altogether.

As slowly as it had started, the light faded away, and Buffy opened her eyes again to see the ring looking completely normal and unmagical, still sitting on the amulet where it had been placed.

She picked the ring up again and looped the amulet back around her neck, studying the heart, hands and crown emblem of the ring, looking for anything that might suggest that there had actually been some sort of magic transfer between them. She couldn't see any difference, but that probably didn't matter. She wasn't much for the magics anyway—maybe Willow would've noticed something. If she were here.

Clenching the ring in her hand, Buffy crouched back down next to Angel, waving a hand in front of his blank stare to see if anything had changed. If that great, blinding light hadn't pulled him out of this state, though, she doubted that anything would at all.

"Alright ring, let's see if you live up to expectations."

Touching Angel's cheek again, just for a second, Buffy reached down and slid her hand under his, lifting it just a tad. She watched his face for any change, even though by now she really wasn't expecting it. God, no wonder he'd been so feral when he'd gotten back to Sunnydale. The difference in stimulation alone would've been so jarring to him.

With a bit of effort—and first trying a finger that the ring just wasn't going to get on—Buffy managed to get the ring to slide down and settle on Angel's hand. She took a couple of quick steps back, letting the magic work, and…

Nothing.

Buffy groaned, frustrated, her head falling back to stare at the ceiling. "What else! What else do you want from me!"

No response. Of course. Angel had just disappeared when painted-Buffy had done this. Fake Angel had implied that she was missing something.

"And if he had actually bothered _telling_ me what that something else was, everything would be peachy," she said, kicking the nearest stalagmite.

"Calm down and watch."

With a start, Buffy spun to glare at Fake Angel. "Would you _stop_ sneaking up on me? You're so lucky I wasn't armed."

His lips quirked, amused. "Look," he said, pointing past her.

She turned back to look at Angel, just in time to see a spark of light start up in the centre of the heart on the ring. The light spread, giving the whole ring a glowing appearance, and then Buffy blinked and Angel had disappeared.

"What—" She turned to glare at Fake Angel again. "What just happened?"

"You must've been a bit late on the other end," the avatar said, raising his shoulders a bit in a shrug.

Buffy folded her arms, shifting and giving him a steady stare. "And what does that _mean_for those of us who aren't you?"

Fake Angel held out his hands in surrender. "Nothing! Buffy, it's just fine. Really. Everything's turning out fine."

"Would you even tell me if it wasn't?"

Fake Angel looked around the cell, his gaze lingering on the demon's corpse for a long moment before he met her stare again. "I will make sure you know if you're going home to a world you don't recognise. But Buffy, it's all fine. I promise."

Buffy shook her head. "What do I have to do now?"

"Go back to the Time Chamber, and watch your past. You'll figure it out."

Still being Mr. Tall, Dark and Aggravating. Fine.

Barely remembering to grab the axe before she left, Buffy clenched the amulet in her hand and let out a long breath, trying to get rid of her frustration enough to feel the warm tinglies that meant the amulet was doing its thing. With quite a bit of focus, and a lot more ignoring Fake Angel just standing there and staring at her—clearly on the verge of helping and wondering if he should offer to or not—the amulet whisked her out.

-8-

Buffy had already begun studying the Time Chamber's walls when Fake Angel appeared beside her, his arms folded across his chest, his amulet still swirling with magic. She didn't spare him much more than a glance.

"So I'm looking for, what, the day we thought Oz had gotten out and started eating people during the full moon?"

"Uhh…"

This time she actually turned fully to look at him. "Uhh… What?"

"I don't… Just look." His gesture toward the mist looked more than a little helpless.

Wondering—and seriously, not for the first time—why she even bothered to ask him anything at all, because either he didn't know or just refused to be forthcoming about _everything_, Buffy looked back where he'd pointed.

Sunnydale didn't immediately float up in front of her eyes, but after a moment of thinking about home, and Angel, and high school, and then sticking all those things together so senior year was solid in her mind, a few different images started to pop up in front of her. She ignored the one that was them fighting the mayor. Ignored prom. Ignored her eighteenth birthday because why would she really want to go back _there_? Ignored a chunk of other images, including her skiving off school with Faith—what had she been thinking, really—until finally pausing on one that caught her eye.

"Scott Hope," she murmured. Fake Angel made a noise in his throat, and Buffy sighed, watching her past self completely freak out as she opened the ring box that Scott handed her.

"And then I… Oh." Buffy grimaced, trying for a very, very tight-lipped smile but not quite making it. "Finally got my act together and tried to move on. Only not, because five-years-down-the-road-me just happened to drop Angel back home."

"You've figured out what it is that you have to do, then?"

"Oh, yeah. You couldn't have just told me, made this all that much easier?"

"No," he murmured. The expected answer, of course. "Would you even have believed me?"

"I don't think there's anything that I wouldn't believe anymore," Buffy muttered, continuing to watch herself-at-seventeen as she went about her day.

"Good luck," Fake Angel murmured.

The words jarred something in her brain, making her shift gears from 'save-Angel' to 'deal-with-emotional-issue' almost before she could blink. "About before…"

Fake Angel looked sheepish. "I didn't—I shouldn't have—I… Buffy, I'm sorry."

She raised a hand to stop him. "Are you?" she asked, because she doubted it.

"I didn't mean to… I'm just supposed to be here as your guide through this, that's it. Whatever I may have… I crossed a line, Buffy, and…"

"It was a peck on the top of the head. It's not that big a deal."

He muttered something she couldn't make out, and she raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms in a posture that mimicked his. "Hmm?"

"I said—I… You should go. We're wasting time."

"Oh you so can't play that card with me anymore, now that you've pulled all the Mysterious-Dimension-Out-of-Time-and-Space crap."

He frowned at her. "Buffy…"

"You told me, way back when we first started all this, that you were Angel. Which you're really, really not, but let's go with that for a minute. Why?"

Fake Angel looked at the Sunnydale image still shifting in front of them, and then closed his eyes. "As far as I… No, there's another way to explain this."

He looked at her again, Buffy returning his gaze with her own expectant one. "All ears," she prompted.


	20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

"I told you that I'm an avatar of the Powers."

"Uh huh. You're supposed to be telling me stuff that I _don__'__t_ know right now."

Fake Angel nodded. "I'm getting there. But first you have to understand what it means, for me to be here, and you to be here with me. They—"

"The Powers."

"—yeah. They chose me to take the form of one of their Champions. And because they were training you, they wanted the form to be one that would have influence on you as well."

"Hence, Angel skin."

He nodded.

"But, whether you want to believe it or not, I'm more Angel than you're—"

"Oh, trust me. I can tell," Buffy said over him. "You can be seriously Angel-y."

His sheepish smile made Buffy roll her eyes.

"You understand, then? That I'm basically an… _imprint_ of Angel. The Powers tried to adapt his essence into a form, and that form ended up being me."

Buffy wrinkled her nose at the explanation. "What does this… essence of Angel thing mean for him?"

"Nothing. Angel—the real Angel—isn't affected."

"So you're not claiming to be Angel anymore. That's nice, at least."

"I'm still—I mean…" he looked flustered again and Buffy sighed, shaking her head and taking pity on him.

"I get it."

"Really?"

Still shaking her head, she could only half raise a hand in surrender. "Yeah, I get it."

"So you'll…" he trailed off and shook his head. "I don't understand any of this."

"The emotional crap? No one understands the emotional crap. Least of all the emotional crap between me and Angel. You're not alone, trust me."

Fake Angel smiled at her, holding out his arm to point toward the Sunnydale scene, where past-Buffy had apparently lived out an entire day during their conversation—or maybe he'd shifted the time forward a bit—and was walking up to the mansion. Going to say goodbye to Angel. Buffy felt her heart ache at the memory of it.

"Go on," he said. "And Buffy? Don't be seen. Goes without saying, I think."

Buffy nodded, took two steps forward, and was swallowed by her own past.

-8-

Buffy could hear her past self just opening the garden doors and entering the mansion when she appeared in the middle of the foyer. Glad, at least, that she wasn't in full view of that entrance—because wouldn't _that_ be fun to explain—she immediately started looking around for a place to hide.

She could imagine what she might say to seventeen-year-old-her if she was seen. Something along the lines of _'__Don__'__t __worry; __it__'__s __your _life _that__'__s __crazy. __Not _you.' Right.

She wished, though, that she could remember this day a bit better. Even though it was probably asking a bit much for her to remember the exact route she'd taken in and out of the mansion. Maybe she should have watched the scene from the Time Chamber a bit more before taking off.

It probably didn't matter, ultimately. She'd put the ring down and left. Not much more to it than that.

Past-Buffy had just come into view as Buffy slipped behind one of the heavy floor length black-out curtains, squishing herself between it and the wall and hoping it didn't bulge out too much around her. Peering around the curtain to see what the younger her was doing was out of the question, so Buffy just stood there, barely breathing in case she was heard.

It was hard to stand this still. Every second dragged on and on, until Buffy finally couldn't take not being able to see anything and shifted her head so she was staring to the side. It didn't help, but soft footsteps starting coming toward her then anyway, and Buffy was glad she hadn't pulled the curtain to the side or something equally stupid in her effort to figure out what was going on.

The footsteps crossed in front of where Buffy was hiding and she heard a soft sniff and a choked, pained sigh. Her eye itched and she wiped at it, distinctly wishing she could jump out and give herself a hug. Her own heart was aching with just a shadow of how painful she remembered this being. She couldn't imagine it being that fresh again.

At least the Powers hadn't decided to send this Buffy—past-Buffy—into hell to save Angel. She didn't think she would have survived, at least emotionally, if they had.

The great front door thudded closed as her past self left and Buffy pushed aside the curtain, stepping out from behind it and tugging it back into place. With a glance up to make sure that all of the windows were covered, she moved toward the fireplace, looking down at the ring that had been so carefully placed on the carpet.

Glancing around to make sure that her past-self hadn't decided to come back for some reason, Buffy bent down and picked up the ring. Turning it around in her fingers, she smiled a bit and slid it on. Only when she looked at it a moment later did she realise she'd put it on with the heart facing her.

Laughing a bit at the ridiculousness of it all, she took the ring off again. Her ring. She never had found it again after she'd left it here. Not that it had ultimately mattered, since she and Angel probably shouldn't have even _tried_ the second act of their relationship. The rings would've just been holdover from a more innocent period, and that wouldn't have been good for either of them.

"So, how are you tied with what I just did?" she asked it, half expecting it to respond with how wacky things had been.

This whole thing probably wasn't as abstract or random as she thought it was. Angel had given the ring to her. He had a ring. The rings went together—his and hers. A set.

The rings were a set.

That had to be the connection. The rings, once the amulet had worked its magics on them, created the same sort of portal that the amulet could carve, except more specific because the ring here created some sort of… anchor, or something, maybe.

That had to be it. And if it wasn't it, then she was probably going to be sorely disappointed and pissed off. Buffy couldn't think of what else it could be though. It had to be the rings. They were crucial to all of this, and had been since the very beginning and she just hadn't been able to see it.

Taking the amulet off and holding it out for what she hoped would be the very last time—she'd be happy with never, ever having to do anything to do with magic again—Buffy held it out on her hand, placing her ring on top of it just like she'd done before, with Angel's. Picturing Angel in her head, and more importantly, picturing Angel wearing his ring and lying in hell, she urged the amulet to do its thing.

After a long moment, it did. The same glowing as before started up in the amulet, the blue dancing beneath the surface, brighter than she remembered it being and forcing her to close her eyes and turn away from it. The blinding light lasted longer than she remembered it lasting before, and the amulet started growing hot enough in her hand that she was tempted to drop it.

Again, it was done as suddenly as it had started, but Buffy swayed, catching her balance with one foot thrown out to the side when she opened her eyes again. The ring glowed, looking like its own spotlight, shedding a shadow onto the face of the amulet, lighted it from above. The light didn't shine onto the amulet, just onto the ring, and Buffy picked it up and peered at it. The spotlight effect remained on the ring. It definitely looked magical, in a way that Angel's ring hadn't when she'd done the same thing.

Letting the hand with the amulet in it fall to her side, Buffy continued to hold the ring up, trying to figure out what she was supposed to be doing with it now. There wasn't anything going on, not really, though the metal band was warm beneath her fingers, the same way the amulet had been warm before.

Frowning, Buffy crouched and placed the ring back down the same way she'd found it, heart pointing toward the floor. The weird glint on it didn't go away. In fact, it grew brighter as she watched, the ring beginning to jump and bounce as though the floor beneath it were rumbling. Buffy stepped back, not feeling any sort of vibration herself, but heading toward the doorway in case this actually was an earthquake.

She kept the ring in her sight, stopping halfway to the door. The vibrations hadn't spread beyond whatever was affecting the ring, so whatever was going on with it had something to do with the magics left in it. Okay. What did that mean?

Just then, the ring emitted a flare of light and a cracking sound came from somewhere and sent Buffy dropping to the floor before her mind could catch up with her instincts. Something whizzed by over her head and she turned a bit to try and follow it, unable to make out whatever it had been. Another crack sounded, this one shaking the building, and then the sound of something large falling onto the floor.

Buffy was back on her feet in an instant, crossing the room as quickly as she could without outright running, to where Angel lay. He looked confused, eyes darting around like he was trying to take in everything at once, and mysteriously soaked in a way he hadn't been when she'd seen him, in what had to be mere moments before now.

"Angel," she said, dropping down to her knees beside him. Angel looked at her, his eyes going wide and he pushed backward, away from her and toward the hearth. His legs kicked out oddly in the movement, flailing a bit and with his ankles bending like he was trying to get traction on the floor to get up but failing.

"Calm down," she whispered. "Angel—" Buffy reached out toward him, but the sudden movement only served to shock him enough that he jumped to his feet. Still trying to move backward, his heel caught the ledge of the fireplace hearth and he tripped, arms wind-milling in an attempt to keep his balance. One of his hands caught the mantle, whacking against it and drawing his attention around.

Head swivelling back and forth, Angel looked between the fireplace and Buffy. She'd stood back up to hold her hands extending, palms facing out, trying to calm him down without making any more sudden movements.

"Hey, it's okay," she said, keeping her voice as soft as she could. Angel's deer-caught-in-the-headlights look didn't change, but he didn't move, either. "That's good. See? Nothing here to hurt you."

She took a step back toward one of the couches, still keeping her hands up. Angel seemed calm enough—if frightened, confused and still completely in shock from being dragged out of hell—that she thought she might be able to maybe at least get him to sit down for a minute. Or lie down and sleep, though the latter was probably asking a bit too much.

Another step backward, and she watched Angel's shoulders fall as she moved out of immediate range. It had taken her a moment to really notice, but he was shaking a bit, and a growl had started back up in his throat. Back to being food. It was better than catatonia, she supposed.

"If you just want to… lie down here or something," she pointed to the couch. "I'll run out as fast as I can and get you something to eat. Just, stay here, Angel, okay?"

Too many words. He'd gone back to looking at her with that same confused, almost worried expression. Maybe she should—oh, hell, what was she supposed to do? Getting him out of hell had apparently been the easy part.

"Angel."

Still looking at her, standing stock-still except for a bit of a quiver in his limbs. Not running away anymore, but certainly unwilling to move any closer to her. That was okay.

"Hey, Angel? I'm just going to—"

Angel's head jerked to one side, looking toward the garden like something else had caught his attention, and breaking off Buffy's train of thought about as efficiently as he could have. A raucous shout came from that direction and Angel snarled a moment before he took off, running toward the door.

* * *

><p><em>For the remainder of December, I'm going to be posting chapters twice a week—Wednesdays and Saturdays. Posting will go back to being every Wednesday at the beginning of January.<em>

_Happy Holidays!_


	21. Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty-One

"Angel!" she shouted after him. She cringed as he threw back the curtain blocking the garden door, a relieved sigh escaping her lips when sunlight didn't immediately spill in. Later in the day than she had thought, at least.

Angel opened the door and jeering laughter poured in from the garden beyond. Eyes wide, Buffy raced across the room. The noise was probably some kids partying. She sure as hell wasn't letting Angel chow down on them.

Skidding to a stop just beyond the doorway, Buffy grimaced. She needn't have worried. A bunch of kids hadn't decided that the old Crawford Street mansion was a good place to party. Rather, a bunch of vampires had apparently decided it had been quiet long enough for them to squat inside, and were now receiving the shock of their unlives at Angel being home.

"Slayer!" One of them shouted, drawing her attention in time for her to catch sight of Angel ripping the head off another.

The vampire who had noticed her threw a series of punches Buffy's way. Buffy deflected them off her arms.

"I was in the middle of something, and you _had_ to come and interrupt. That's so rude," she scowled. She couldn't see Angel from where she was, throwing her own punches and forcing the vampire to take step after step backward toward the garden wall. The vampire snorted at her.

"You're looking old, Slayer," he retorted.

Buffy raised her eyebrows and scowled, lifting him by the front of his shirt and ramming him backward onto a dead branch sticking out of the garden.

"And you're looking stupid," she muttered, rubbing her hands together to shake the dust off of them. Remembering Angel, she spun, groaning and throwing her head back when she realised the garden was empty.

There had only been four vamps, and she was betting at least one of them had taken off while she was fighting. Angel had dusted one, and had probably managed to get a second. Maybe he'd seen where the last one had gone and gone after it.

Groaning, because she was _sure_ Fake Angel would have something to say about what she was about to do, Buffy took off out of the garden. Pausing only for a moment's deliberation while she tried to figure out where he might have gone, Buffy settled for heading toward the main part of town. Angel probably wouldn't have gone there if it were just him, but hopefully he was still chasing that fourth vampire, and hopefully said vampire acted like all of the rest of them.

-8-

If Buffy hadn't completely lost track of Angel when she left the mansion, she certainly had by the time she got into town. There were too many people around—people she really hoped that Angel was avoiding rather than snacking on—for her to do much real searching, too. She walked through the centre of town, keeping to the shadows but otherwise enjoying being back in Sunnydale.

It was like she'd stepped right into one of her own memories, and she supposed that in a way, she had. This wasn't just Sunnydale exactly as it had been five years ago. This _was_ Sunnydale five years ago.

"This is so weird…" Buffy muttered, walking past the Espresso Pump, steps quickening when she recognised a few people there who'd been in her graduating class in high school. Were still in high school here, and hadn't yet graduated. "_So._Weird."

There was a clothing store next and Buffy stopped in front of the display window, gazing at the out-of-date fashions and outright scrunching her nose up at some of the colour combinations. Stepping closer to the window, she pressed her nose up against the glass, peering into the dark shop to try and see what else was on display.

Laughing and shaking her head at a particularly ugly blazer that she probably would've wanted at seventeen—okay maybe,_hopefully_, not, because it really was hideous—Buffy stepped back, half turning to continue on her way down the street. A second later she'd caught both her balance and someone else's coffee when a man walked into her.

"Sorry," Buffy said automatically, handing him back his coffee. "'Least it didn't spill."

"Yes, well, I should have been better watching where I was going," the man replied. Buffy looked up at him, the familiarity of the voice making her jaw drop the tiniest bit and a little voice in her head starting to swear up a storm. Giles. She'd probably rescued tea, then. God, was that all she could think about right now? "You do have remarkable reflexes."

"Uhm. Yeah." Buffy gave him a tight smile; then quickly looked away because he was peering at her. He'd recognised her, or at least realised she looked familiar. "Excuse me," she said, dodging around him.

"Miss?" Giles called after her. Buffy hesitated, but kept going.

Giles' hand closed around her arm a moment later. "Buffy. I don't understand how, but—"

She cringed, not turning around. "I'm not—I'm going to get in serious trouble if I talk to you right now. Like… trouble on a cosmic scale trouble. Really, I don't need to be in that much trouble."

Giles came around to stand in front of her. "You look well," he said. "And… older. More seasoned."

"Tenderized and all ready for the grill. That I am going to be on if I stay here and talk to you."

"And still with the same spirit," he said, smiling and looking exasperated at the same time. Same old Giles.

Buffy couldn't help it. She smiled. It had been a long time since she'd seen Giles this relaxed. He looked a lot younger, too, and Buffy felt the weight of the past few years seep into her. A lot had happened that the man standing in front of her couldn't see coming—or if he could, he'd never shared it.

"If you don't mind my asking, how…" Giles faltered and Buffy snorted.

"Twenty-two."

He took off his glasses and wiped the lenses for a moment before sliding them back on to reappraise her. "This is… you're truly an extraordinary young woman, Buffy. But… how are you here?"

"Wrong turn at the rabbit hole?"

"You can't tell me."

"Nope. Lips firmly sealed, key beyond recovery."

"I understand," he said, still smiling, though there were a lot of conflicting emotions in his eyes. "This has been… Thank you."

Buffy beamed at him. "You are so getting told off for never mentioning this to me."

Giles shook his head, laughing a little. "Good bye, Buffy."

"Bye, Giles," she said.

They parted and she watched him go for a long moment, feeling homesick—and way nostalgic for when things had been easy—then darted down the nearest alleyway, already starting to activate the amulet as she went.

-8-

She received the full force of Fake Angel's disapproving glare when she reappeared in the Time Chamber.

"Don't say it. I was trying to stop Angel from killing people."

"You can't change the past."

"I'm pretty sure people say that because you're not supposed to be able to dive into your past and mess around with it."

His glare didn't lessen.

"Giles isn't going to tell anyone," Buffy pointed out. "And I didn't manage to find Angel, so he's still going to run around and kill people. Happy?"

Fake Angel made a noise in his throat. "Guess I'm going to have to be."

Ignoring his grumpiness, Buffy leapt right into what was on her mind. "I'm going home now, right?"

He gave her a long look, and then nodded slowly. "There's one more—"

"No." She ignored his perplexed look. "You said that this," she gestured at the scenes playing around them. "Was. It. That I had to save Angel from hell, and then I got to go home. I saved Angel. He's running around Sunnydale killing people and waiting for past me to find him _right._ _Now._"

"Buffy, I know but—"

She continued talking over him. "No! I didn't go through all that, with the _promise_ that I would be free to go back and live my life again after, _free_ from your influence, only to be told that there's yet another thing that I have to clean up for you! If you want it done, do it yourself."

"Buffy!"

She clamped her lips together at the shout. "What?" she grumbled.

"There's one last spell. That's it. One spell and you're home."

She gave him a doubtful look. "It's always just 'one more thing' with you."

"I promise, this time. Okay?"

She threw up her hands. "Fine," she ground out, preferring to try and watch the time passing in the images around them rather than looking at him. She was too mad to look at him. "What's another hoop when I've already done tricks through a dozen of them?"

He didn't respond, just gestured for her to follow him and headed out of the Time Chamber. Dragging her feet, Buffy followed.

"What's this spell?" she asked as they crossed the Balance Chamber.

Fake Angel shook his head. "It's nothing you have to do. You just need to be here for it."

"Didn't really answer the question. Be forward with me."

"I can't, Buffy."

"Then I can't participate in it."

He spun around to glare at her. "You don't have a choice. This is coming from the Powers themselves."

"Yeah, and?"

He scowled at her. "The spell marks the end of your training here. Does that answer satisfy you?"

"Not even a little bit," Buffy replied. "But just do it," she added when he looked like he was going to shout at her again.

Fuming, Fake Angel turned back to face the Balance Mosaic, raising his arms out to the side and intoning something in that weird low voice he adopted whenever he did magic. Buffy watched, suspicious, when the images in the mosaic began to writhe and dance, surging back and forth together frantically, the light side surging and ebbing, over and over again until Fake Angel dropped his arms and everything abruptly stopped.

He turned back to face her, eyes glowing solid amber, pupils and whites completely washed in the colour. Buffy took a step back.

"What—"

Fake Angel's lips closed over hers; cutting her off, and for a moment—just a moment—Buffy resisted the kiss. He was warm. So much warmer than Angel ever was, and that threw her off for a moment. A long moment, until his lips moved against hers and the warmth didn't matter anymore—was in fact quite soothing—and she sunk into the otherwise familiar action. His hands were on her waist, tugging her close and Buffy could feel power pouring off of him and into her wherever they touched.

Despite her eyes being closed, Buffy felt blinded by something glowing beyond the safety of her eyelids. The glowing dimmed, though, as rapidly as Angel's—no, Fake Angel's—lips went from warm to cool again. He pulled away and she blinked her eyes open, seeing stars, dizzy and unable to really focus on anything, glad that his hands were bracing her.

Then the stars started exploding, and Buffy's vision went white.

End Part One


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

Part Two

"Bring down the gods from heaven, evoke the dead, and give voices to cities and states." – Quintilian

Chapter Twenty-Two

Buffy's head was fuzzy. Fuzzy, like she'd had a bit too much to drink the night before—or had had the magic equivalent of a truck forced into her in some bizarro spell—and hadn't been given any time to recover from it. She was warm, though, and whatever she was lying on was soft enough that for a moment she contemplated rolling over and just going back to sleep. A whisper from somewhere in the room stopped her from doing just that.

"You're still here? It's been a few hours, maybe lie down for a bit—"

"In bed?"

The first voice had been unfamiliar. The one that cut it off, though, wasn't at all.

"Well, okay, you make a fair point, but—"

"We don't even know if it's really her, Lorne."

"I think you'd know, Angelcakes."

Fully awake, because they were _clearly_ talking about her, Buffy bit the inside of her lip to keep herself from bursting out laughing at the nickname.

"Maybe. I'm not all that sure of anything anymore," the pitch of his voice changed, "And you're not fooling anyone, we know you're awake."

"We do?" the other man sounded confused.

Buffy opened her eyes, sitting up slowly because her head was _pounding_, and sparing a glance for the room before looking over at the doorway where Angel and his companion, a green, horned demon, were standing. Angel had referred to him as Lorne. That added up with what Willow had told her of Angel's gang, anyway.

_'__Stay __casual, __Buffy. __Who __knows __what __universe __you__'__re __in __this __time?__'_

"Nice place," she said, gesturing to the bedspread. "Comfy."

Angel crossed his arms. He was wearing a suit. A _suit_. A suit that looked very good on him. Actually, he looked good all 'round—maybe a little tired—while she was pretty sure she sported mini-coma bed head, definitely didn't have any makeup on, and was wearing—a quick glance down—some sort of weird purple robe thing. No doubt a parting gift from the Powers. Great.

"Buffy, what are you doing here?"

Putting her hand to her head as though that would actually stop the pounding, she glared at him. "Gee, Angel, nice to see you too."

What was that about stepping carefully in case this wasn't the dimension she knew?

He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Buffy."

"Fill me in on where 'here' is and I might be able to help you," she said, tossing back the covers and sweeping her legs over the side of the bed. It gave her a good look at the robe thing she was wearing.

It was deep purple, and silk, and so light that it barely felt like it was there. Weirdly comfortable, considering how it looked, and probably lighter than anything she'd ever worn. And so, so not something she'd have chosen to wear in _any_ lifetime or dimension or… whatever. Did it have something to do with that final spell Fake Angel had done?

Feeling stiff all over, she stood and stretched while Angel spoke.

"You're in L.A, Buffy." Confusion, and maybe a little bit of concern, joined the irritation in his voice.

"L.A.'s a big city, Angel," she replied, walking over to the window and looking out. Her eyebrows climbed her forehead at the view. "Wow."

"Wolfram and Hart," Angel said. The irritation was back. "As you well know."

She made a noise of agreement in her throat, peering at her reflection in the window and trying to smooth her hair into something presentable. She settled for looping it in on itself in a knot at her nape. "And what's Evil Inc. been up to lately?"

"What, your people don't talk to you?"

She turned at the outright hostility, furrowing her brow. "What?" Maybe it had been a bad idea to treat this as she would've her own world. Maybe she hadn't done everything just right when she'd brought Angel back from hell, and she was dealing with the backlash of that. Anything could be going on that her memory wasn't filling her in on, really.

One thing was clear, though: her appearance in L.A. was just as out-of-the-blue to Angel as it was to her. Hopefully she'd figure out what was going on faster than he did.

"I'm not sure what part of that was unclear."

Buffy bristled. "Sorry, I don't speak vague, accusing statement. What is _wrong_ with you?"

"With _me_? Well, let's see, Buffy. I'm in the middle of trying to adjust to a huge change in my life, trying to keep my team from falling apart in the middle of it, trying to keep a _business _running through the end of first quarter markets and, oh yeah, trying to figure out how you just _dropped __out __of __thin __air_ into the middle of my lobby!"

"So, _life_ is your big problem? Wow, glad we got that out into the open."

"Now hold on just a second." Stepping between them the green demon—Lorne—spread out his hands, miming keeping them apart from one another. "I think you kids are both jumping into the arguing way too fast. Now that your little Slayerkins is awake, why don't we head downstairs and try and figure this all out as a group?"

"She's not—"

"I'm not—"

She and Angel looked at one another across Lorne, who smiled a bit. "Well that's settled then," he said, clapping his hands together. He moved toward Buffy, coming around and extending an arm behind her, gesturing past Angel. "The elevator's this way."

She shrugged away from him, fully intending on going another round with Angel, but he turned away, disappearing from sight into the other room.

"You should've seen him when you first showed up here," Lorne said. Buffy looked up at him. "He's playing Mr Tough Guy now, but he's been worried about you, honey. He's barely left your side."

"Lorne!" Angel shouted.

Lorne scoffed. "We're coming Angelhair, don't worry your pretty little head." He turned back to Buffy. "You know, it dawns on me that we haven't formally been introduced," he said, offering a hand, "Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan. But, everyone calls me Lorne."

"Buffy Summers," she replied. "But you knew that."

"I've heard a thing or two about you," he said with a wink.

"I'll bet," Buffy muttered, following his lead when he gestured for them to leave the room. She looked around the sitting room of the condo as they walked through it. "Penthouse?" she asked, eyebrows going up at the elevator just off the living room.

Angel gave a non-committal mutter under his breath and she rolled her eyes, squeezing her lips together with a jerky nod. This was going to be fun.

Angel's office, with its wall of weapons on display behind the huge wooden desk, suited him. Being CEO of a big huge company was clearly his element as well, she noted, watching as he leafed through a file on his desk and then punched a button on his phone.

"Send Wesley and Gunn up to my office for a conference, tell them it's urgent."

_"__Ohhh, __is __she __awake?__" _Buffy turned at the high-pitched squeal coming through the speaker. She knew that voice.

"Harmony!"

Yep. Definitely knew that voice.

_"__Yes, __boss, __right __away!__"_

"…_Harmony?_ Really. _Harmony_ works for you?" Buffy shook her head. "I don't know what dimension I've landed in this time, but I really want to go home," she muttered.

"Oh, and Harmony. Maybe sure to tell them to try and come _alone_," Angel said, ignoring her.

"I can't believe Harmony works for you. She's," Buffy paused, grasping for a word.

Angel turned the speaker off. "Evil?"

She threw up her arms. "Technically, yes! Not to mention incompetent, but I guess I can see the benefits to keeping her around for that. I mean, the hilarity alone…" she trailed off, acknowledging Angel's exasperated look.

"It's one more vampire off the street, Buffy, and I have a zero tolerance policy for killing. They kill, they're dead."

Buffy put her hand to her head. "Save more lives not giving them a chance to kill at all."

He glared at her. "Look, I don't barge into your life and tell _you_ how to run things."

"Oh but you would if you could, Angel. Don't give me that crap."

He sat down, dropping heavily into the desk chair. "No, I wouldn't."

Buffy snorted, folding her arms over her chest. Her attention was drawn to the office doors when they opened.

"Harmony said that—Ah, Buffy. It's good to see you well," Wesley said, closing the door behind him after he and a tall black man Buffy didn't know entered.

"Wesley," she greeted.

"Charles Gunn," the other man said, coming forward to shake her hand.

Buffy smiled at him. "Buffy Summers."

"Thought you'd be bigger," he said, his gaze flicking over her.

She let out a laugh. "I don't need to be."

"I hear that!"

Angel cleared his throat. "Can we focus?"

Buffy turned back to face him with an exasperated look while the others took seats on the couches by the window. Left standing in the middle of the room, Buffy felt the tiniest bit as though she were on display. It wasn't the greatest feeling in the world when she already wasn't at her best.

Angel met her eyes and sighed, "Can someone please get Buffy a chair?"

"Maybe it would be better to discuss this in the boardroom, Angel," Wesley suggested, as Gunn got up and slid open the glass doors at the far end of the room. He dragged a chair in, closing the doors again.

"I think Angel's got this one right," he said, pushing the chair so it rolled over to Buffy. She grabbed it, thanking him with a smile, and sat down. "I mean, we don't want to do this in any sort of official capacity, so the boardroom's out."

"Gunn's got it," Angel said. Buffy turned her chair on an angle so she could see both the group on the couches, and Angel behind his desk. "It's bad enough the whole building knows that Buffy's here. The fewer people who know any details, the better. We take it to the boardroom, we're giving it a level of company business that it doesn't need."

"Whole building?" Buffy asked. Well, he _had_ said she'd dropped into the lobby. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised.

He glared at her. "You left scorch marks on the floor. You knocked out the power to the entire block for _four__hours_. Safe to say everyone wanted to know what had happened."

"Right. Gotcha," she muttered, eyes wide. He was pissed. She wasn't sure that she blamed him for it, either.

"Wesley. Did you find out anything?" Angel asked after a lingering look at Buffy.

"Uhh. Well, actually, I was hoping that, now that Buffy's awake, she might be able to tell us something," Wesley said. He pulled something wrapped in cloth out of his pocket and leaned over to hand it to her. Brow furrowed, Buffy took it.

Pulling open the cloth wrappings, Buffy let out a long breath when the material fell away to reveal the amulet. She hadn't even noticed, until now, that she wasn't wearing it. _'__Way __to __be __observant, __Buffy.__'_

"I didn't get very far in my research, despite pooling as many of my resources as I could. I suppose Mr Giles would know more but we…" Wesley trailed off, looking over at Angel. "Well, with the time difference and all, I didn't think it prudent to waste time trying to get into contact with him."

"How far did you get, Wesley?" Buffy asked, putting the amulet back on. She didn't fail to notice that the pendant fit perfectly in a dip in the neckline cut of the robe, so that it remained against her skin with the fabric framing it. The robe was most definitely a present from the Powers, and definitely had _something_ to do with all the weird training crap she'd been through. What, though?

"Ahh…" he sounded embarrassed. "Not anything beyond the name and its translation." He addressed the next part to Angel. "It's called the Kostheshr Hekmon. The name is a poorly stuck together combination of Proto-Indo-European headwords, roughly translating to the Stone of Blood and Bone."

There was that name again. She liked the amulet far better when its name stayed untranslated and nearly unpronounceable.

"That's not sounding too good," Lorne said.

"No, it's not," Angel replied. "Buffy, _what_ is it?"

She shook her head. "It's… complicated. I don't really know what it is, I don't even really know what it does."

"And yet you're wearing it. Buffy, can I remind you of the last amulet of power that fell into our hands. The thing turned Sunnydale into a crater!"

"I know what it did, Angel," she said, voice soft, the memory of light bursting from _that_ particular amulet vivid in her mind.

"Then how can you just…"

"Because she's Buffy, and she doesn't need anyone trying to hold her hand. Particularly _you_," said a voice from the doorway. She hadn't even heard the door open. Worse, knowing it was open now, she couldn't even bring herself to turn around to face the door.

Spike's voice. That was Spike standing in the doorway and that… well that meant that despite all evidence to the contrary, she couldn't possibly be in the dimension she knew at all.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Spike," Angel growled. Then bellowed, "Harmony! I told you to keep everyone out of here!"

Buffy still hadn't turned around, but she could hear loud, heeled clicks as someone ran up to the office door.

"I know! I know, and I tried, but he wouldn't stop and you know how he is!"

"Yeah, Angel, you know how I am."

Buffy took a few quick breaths, letting them out through her nose and trying to adjust as quickly as she could to this newest turn. She should have taken a hint from all the earlier cues that she wasn't where she was supposed to be—or if she was, she had screwed up rescuing Angel and history, as she knew it, had changed.

Maybe things weren't all that different. Maybe it had just been another champion who had worn the amulet when they'd taken down the First, and not Spike, and so Spike was here and alive. But maybe—damn. She couldn't assume anything about how those five years—or whatever—had passed since she'd brought Angel back from hell.

"Get out of here, Spike."

Everything else was matching up so well. She could be home, if not for this glaring error. Why would bringing Angel back wrong affect how things turned out with Spike? _Had _things even turned out with Spike, or was he just evil and soulless and hanging around at Wolfram and Hart because it was a soulless, evil thing to do?

"No. I told you I wanted to be in on the group that knew when Buffy woke up."

"Well now you know, so get out."

"I'd like to see you make me," Spike said.

"Gladly," Angel growled.

Buffy finally got herself together and stood in time to see Wesley put up his hands. At some point Angel had stood up and stepped around his desk, and Wesley was just about (but not quite) standing between the two vampires. "I don't really think we have time for this right now. There are more important matters to attend to."

Everyone was staring at her and Spike, though, and Buffy didn't have a clue why. Maybe they were waiting to see if she tried to kill him—and okay, in the back of her mind she was hoping it was because he actually _had_ gone up like a torch and somehow been brought back anyway.

"Buffy?" Tentative voice. Could fit either scenario, really.

"Spike," she greeted, crossing her arms and keeping her tone even. His eyebrows quirked a bit, then furrowed in confusion.

"Everything okay, pet?"

She gave him a tight smile. "Everything's just fine," she said. _Everyone_ was looking at her strangely now, she realised as she glanced around the room, though Angel looked a little as though his confusion was mixed with triumph.

"Going back to the issue at hand…" Angel said.

"Wait. If you're here, Spike, then where's Illyria?" Wesley asked.

Buffy wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar name.

"Off playing with some toys in the training room. She's a big girl. Can keep herself entertained. That, and I didn't really feel like getting my ass kicked sparring with her."

Wesley looked worried. "I think someone should be there regardless, we don't—"

"Illyria will be fine," Angel said. "And she's not our primary concern right now. Harmony, go."

"But shouldn't I, you know, be around to take the minutes or something? Or you might need something and—"

"Harmony!"

"Fineee," she whined, and withdrew from the room.

Angel scrubbed a hand across his face as he returned to his seat. "Where were we?" he asked.

"Trying to lecture Buffy on how she conducts herself, I think. 'Least, that seemed to be what I walked in on," Spike said. He perched on the edge of Angel's desk, his grin broadening when Angel's scowl deepened.

"I wasn't _lecturing_," Angel said, making a jerky gesture with his hands. "I was just… I'm just concerned that maybe the Kostheshr Hekmon is more dangerous than any of us realise, since we _apparently_ have no background info on it."

"Angel, why don't you let me deal with my own issues? Since as you said upstairs, you're way too busy dealing with all the other shit in your life to worry about this right now." Buffy met his glare with her own, daring him to actually try and take over here. Sure, L.A. was his city. Didn't mean she had to listen to him.

"Because, suddenly, your issues involve me _directly_."

"How so?"

He gave her a flat look. "Are you really going to make me repeat myself?"

"Thinking about it."

Spike snickered. "She's got you, Angel. What're you going to do, babysit her? Slayer-proof the office so she can't hurt herself?"

"Spike!" Angel roared. "If you can't either add something _useful_ to this discussion or shut up, then get. Out."

"Look," Buffy said, watching as Spike made mocking faces at Angel and the storm cloud around Angel's head grew, "I'll just arrange a flight home, okay? I'll get out of your hair, out of your city, and I'll take my issues with me."

"That might not be the best idea," Wesley said. She looked over at him, ignoring Spike's shout when Angel pushed him off the desk.

"And I can't wait to find out why," Buffy muttered. Her headache was back full force. At least her head wasn't all that fuzzy anymore.

Wesley frowned, turning his address to Angel. "I just think that we should find out why Buffy appeared _here_, in particular. It couldn't have been random that she would appear in the lobby here, Angel. It's too targeted, and, quite frankly, I'm tempted to say that with all of the spells and everything else surrounding the building, it frankly should have been impossible. At least without…" he looked thoughtful as he trailed off, and a second later leapt up from his seat.

"Wes?" Angel prompted. "Impossible without what?"

"Well… without a power level somewhere near Illyria's. I think I know where to continue my research. I'll call you as soon as I find anything," he said, and strode from the office, already looking deep in thought.

Spike took the opportunity to jump in. "Well, while he's doing that—"

"Buffy, there's a guest room off the penthouse. I can put you up there for a few nights, until we find out what's going on," Angel said, cutting across him.

"If we're done here, gang, then I'm going to go. It's getting late," Lorne said, rising. He sounded a lot more tired than he had before, and Buffy's attention flicked between him and Gunn, who had risen as well.

"I'm going to take off, too," he said. "Hey, uhh. Good luck with those two." He smiled at her, indicating Spike and Angel with a glance.

"I can handle it. Thanks, Gunn."

Spike turned on Angel as soon as Gunn left the office. "You were awful quick to—Pet?"

Buffy lowered her raised hand. "How long was I out?"

"About a day and a half," Angel said, leaning back and crossing his arms. "So, seeing as you didn't know where you were, I'm guessing it's safe to assume you don't know how you got here."

Buffy blinked at him for a moment. A day and a half. Unconscious for a day and a half after kissing some sort of… _demi-god_, and she had no idea how she'd ended up here after.

"Pretty safe," she replied.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Angel asked.

_'Making out with a guy who looked and kissed like you.' _Feeling colour spread across her cheeks, Buffy shook her head and made a split second decision.

"I grabbed the amulet from Giles, and next thing I knew I was waking up here."

She looked away from Spike's narrowed eyes, hoping that maybe they would attribute her blushing to the stupidity of the act rather than to something she wasn't telling them.

Angel seemed to buy it, at least.

"Could have been a plant by the Senior Partners," he muttered, looking contemplative. "Doesn't seem such a stretch that they would involve you if I'm not doing what they want."

Buffy gave him a sceptical look and gestured around the office. "Because you're not doing what they want at all."

He glared at her, but Spike burst out laughing. "Oh she's got you there, mate."

Angel ignored him. "I'd be more comfortable if you left that," he looked at the amulet, "with Wesley until we're a bit better informed about it."

How to play _this_ one, and without letting on that she remembered more about her out-of-world journey than she was pretending to? Maybe she shouldn't have said she didn't remember anything. Maybe she could have admitted to remembering little things.

_'Like the brief fangy stint? Right.'_

"It's meant for the Slayer, Angel," she said levelly. He frowned, meeting her eyes with a searching look. "I don't know why it did what it did, but it was made for me."

"The Slayer, or a Slayer?" Angel asked, no inflection in his tone. She frowned, glancing at Spike to see if maybe he knew what this was all about. Spike's face remained impassive, though. Okay, maybe Willow had done her spell in this timeline, too, and there were lots of Slayers. Or maybe Angel was just over-generalising and trying to suggest that maybe the amulet wasn't hers after all—just like Giles had done when they'd first found it.

Or maybe there was something more to the words altogether, because Angel was still giving her that oddly searching look, like he was trying to get her to bring up a topic he didn't want to broach himself.

"Me, Angel. It's made for me."

"How sure are you, pet?" Spike asked. His voice was soft, like he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted an answer to the question. Buffy supposed that she couldn't really blame him. She was kind of an unknown variable right now.

"Pretty sure," Buffy muttered.

"And it couldn't at all have transported you halfway across the world and knocked you out because you _weren't _meant to have it," Angel said.

Filtering out the aggravation in the tone, since Angel just seemed to be in a mood, Buffy worked those words around in her head.

"Giles sent Kennedy with Willow to bring it back and it didn't do anything at all when Kennedy touched it. Willow couldn't sense any power from it at all. This is Slayer stuff. Kind of the expert on it, here." As soon as she said it, Buffy wanted to take it back. Tense, and worried she may have given herself away as not belonging here, she actually found it a little hard to breathe.

"Kennedy?"

"One of the new Slayers," Spike said. "Red's new girlfriend."

Buffy expelled the breath as slowly as she could manage. The spell had happened. Maybe she _was _home, after all. But Spike…

"Did any of your other girls try it? Faith?" Angel asked, nodding at the explanation.

Buffy shook her head. "Why?"

"What if it didn't work for them because they weren't Called?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes. "Just because Faith and I didn't die for them to be Called doesn't mean they're not every bit Slayers, Angel."

"That's not what I asked, Buffy. I'm just suggesting that—"

"That because we broke the cycle and shared the power, they're somehow less than me and Faith."

Angel folded his hands on the top of his desk. "Why are you looking for a fight?"

"I'm not looking for a fight! Just because you don't want to—"

She turned at the sound of the office door opening again.

Angel sighed. "What is it, Harmony?"

"Uhh," she shuffled her feet, looking back and forth between them all and apparently reweighing the importance of her message. "I wouldn't interrupt if it wasn't really, _really _important!"

"Get on with it, Harm," Spike said, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. Buffy put her hands on her hips and frowned.

"Uhh… Rupert Giles is on the phone. But he wouldn't tell me anything so I don't know why, and he wouldn't leave a message either. And he wouldn't hang up. So he's holding and…"

Buffy tuned her out, turning back to face Angel, who had already grabbed the receiver and picked up the call.

"Giles." A pause. "Yeah, she's here. She's okay." A frown, and another searching look directed at Buffy. "How long?" His frown deepened. "Yeah. She's right here."

He held out the receiver to her. Gathering herself, Buffy took it from him.


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Hi, Giles," Buffy said, summoning a smile and hoping it carried through in her voice. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to her Watcher—she really, really did. She didn't, however, want to have any sort of detailed conversation about the amulet and the Powers and Fake Angel in front of Spike and Angel.

And then, she supposed, there was that little issue of her still not really being sure of where and when she was. Giles might be able to clear that up a bit, at least, but she guessed he really couldn't if she didn't want to have this conversation here. Great.

"Buffy," Giles said, his tone breathy and relieved sounding. "Thank God you're alright." He paused. "You _are_ alright?"

"I'm okay," she replied. "I've been better. Bit confused. Getting it back together."

Giles cleared his throat. "Yes, well, I suppose that's to be expected, when you've—Buffy, _where_ did you go?"

"Where?" she asked, suddenly uneasy. Spike and Angel were both looking on, not even pretending that they couldn't hear Giles on the other end of the line. Frowning at them, she turned around and faced the window, trying to at least give herself the illusion that there was a bit of privacy for this conversation.

"We've been searching," Giles said. "Willow, in particular, has been in something of a frenzy. She's even searched the astral plane for you."

"The astral—Giles I haven't been gone that long. Like, two days, tops." She turned back around, scrunching up her nose at the look Angel was wearing—like he'd just figured something out, or was starting to put more pieces together of a puzzle that she hadn't even seen yet. Or maybe she was holding the box with the completed image. She really didn't know.

Giles was quiet for a very long time. "Giles?"

"Buffy, it's March."

She dropped the phone. The handset swung down and smacked against the side of Angel's desk. Plastic clicked against wood as the cord swayed, bringing the phone against the desk again and again.

March? How could it be March? Even if the time she'd spent in the Powers dimension had passed here, she definitely hadn't been gone for that long.

"Buffy?" Spike asked.

Scrambling to grab the phone back up, she met his eyes for just a moment; giving the bit of concern and confusion in them a smile she hoped was reassuring.

"Buffy? Are you alright?" Giles was asking when she got the phone back up to her ear.

"Yeah, I'm—I dropped the phone. I'm—March?" she looked at Angel and Spike for confirmation. "It's—It should be _August_."

Giles was still talking on the other end of the line, but Buffy had stopped listening. She'd lost eight months somehow—eight months, when she knew pretty much for a _fact_ that she shouldn't have lost any time at all. How many times had she just jumped into a timeline at whatever point she wanted?

"Giles, I-I have to go," she said, stumbling over the hem of her robe in her attempt to get over to the desk. "I'll call you later, okay?" she said over whatever he was saying on the other end.

Unable to reach the cradle even if she hadn't been keeping the phone at her ear instead of trying to hang it up, Buffy gestured at Angel. Frowning, he pressed a button on the keypad. Buffy let out a long breath at the sound of dial tone in her ear. Her knees buckled and she fell with the phone when she dropped it again.

Both vampires were at her side in an instant, Spike crouched maybe a little bit closer, his hand on her arm. She knocked it off, taking deep breaths to steady herself and blinking quickly to try and refocus her eyes.

"I'm fine," she muttered before either of them could say anything. Neither contradicted her, but even staring at the carpet and the feet of Angel's desk instead of looking around, she could tell that they very much doubted that. She definitely hadn't convinced herself of it with the tone of that statement.

"Really. Fine. Good. Excellent, even," she continued, pushing herself up with her hands on her thighs.

"You just hung up on Giles," Angel pointed out.

"Nuh uh. _You_ hung up on Giles. I had nothing to do with the pressing of the button to disconnect the line with Giles." She paused. "Well, almost nothing."

Angel looked frustrated and concerned rather than amused; too bad. "I think you need rest, Buffy. We can talk more tomorrow."

"Just spent a _whooole_ bunch of time unconscious. Super constitution, don't need sleep, remember?"

"Yeah, except that you're in shock and it's made you completely loopy," Spike said. "Sleep'll do you good, love."

Spike and Angel were agreeing. She was doomed. Completely and utterly doomed. And maybe Spike was right. Maybe she was sort of in shock. And maybe sleep would give her a chance to figure out why everything in this world except for Spike matched up with the way she remembered things happening.

"Fine," Buffy said, putting a hand to her head. Sleep would get rid of this headache, anyway. "I'll just… Did you say there was an extra room?" she asked, looking at Angel.

He nodded. "Upstairs. It's kind of tiny, but it's got a bed, bathroom."

"It's got a bed and I won't be sharing it with 5 other girls. It's fine."

Spike snorted, but quickly sobered. "Hey, you could stay with me, you know."

"Spike, you have a cot and a couch. Don't bother," Angel growled.

"She could have the bed!" He looked at Buffy. "Really, I mean it's not much but it's not here, at least."

She gave him a tight smile. "Just… This is right upstairs, Spike. But thanks for the offer."

He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, whatever. Look, maybe I'll stay here tonight then, and—"

"Get out, Spike," Angel said. "Go be a vigilante or whatever it is you do now."

"Do exactly what you're supposed to be doing, don't I?" he growled. He appealed to her with a look. Buffy shook her head. Spike was a vigilante? Since when?

"Fine," Spike said, though he didn't sound at all happy about it. Hunched over a bit with his hands still jammed deep into his pockets, he left the office.

"Don't be so smug," Buffy said, without even looking up at Angel. "Where's this room?"

-8-

Buffy blinked her eyes open, finding the glowing numbers of the clock next to the bed and groaning. She'd only been asleep for four hours; probably better than nothing, and at least she'd slept well, but still. Four hours. She really shouldn't have given in and tried to sleep, no matter how insistent Angel and Spike had been.

"What to do…" she mumbled. She sat up and looked around the room, peering through the dark and trying to remember what each vague shape was. Table. Chair. Doorway to the bathroom. …And that big thing beside the bedroom door had _not_ been there when she'd gone to sleep.

Buffy scrambled to turn on the light, her other hand reaching under her pillow for a stake that wasn't there. Right. Angel's penthouse. Not at home, so nothing was where it belonged. Her fingers flicked the switch on the lamp. On and off. On and off. She cursed when nothing happened.

"Burnt bulb, great. Thanks, Angel."

"Don't worry about the light."

Buffy jumped. Of _course_ the hulking person-shaped thing by the door would be Angel. Because it was his place, and he was the only other person here.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked, irritated both by her jumpiness and that his looming had apparently been what had woken her up.

"Wanted to talk to you," he said from his spot on the bed beside her. "How're you settling in?"

She clenched the stake in her hand; then relaxed her grip. "Fine, couldn't we talk about this in the morning?" She was confused. It had been pretty clear before she'd gone to bed that she really wasn't settling in well at all, hadn't it? What with the missing time and all.

"No," he said with a bit of a laugh. "Now's probably a better time." He held his hand out to her, showing her the black amulet in it. A clone of hers, the diamond on it glinted dully. It was familiar. It was Fake Angel's.

"What do you want me to do with that?" she asked, reaching for it. He closed his hand around the stone and pulled it back.

"Get it from me," he said.

She gave him a dubious look. "I have to _what_ now? You've got it right here."

"No, I need you to get it from me and give it to Angel. Your Angel—the real one."

She scrunched up her nose. "You want me to use… this…" Oh, where had that stake gone? For that matter, who had she been talking to again?

Buffy blinked open her eyes with a groan, squinting at the sunlight shining in through the window, and glanced at the lamp on the bedside table, a vague reminder of the weird dream, or visitation or whatever that had been stirring at the sight of it. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and frowned at the clock. The morning was almost over—so much for not having been tired.

She felt much more normal this morning, though. Her headache was gone; she didn't feel like she had a hangover… all in all, a lot better than yesterday. Fantastic, since she suspected today was going to be even more stressful than the previous day had been.

She should probably find Angel, figure out how things were going to work here, get herself some normal street clothes. Oh, and shower. Maybe not all in that order.

-8-

"Morning," Angel greeted when she stepped off of the elevator. He didn't look up from his papers.

"I feel wanted," she said.

That made him look up, a crease in his brow. "Sorry," he said, watching her walk over. She stopped near the desk, glancing down at the document he was reading and grabbing an elastic band off of the top of the desk. She tied her hair—still wet from the shower—back in a ponytail before turning her attention on the arms displayed on the wall behind him. "There's a lot on my mind."

"Uh huh." She lifted the sword down from the wall, aware of Angel's suddenly wary look. Stepping away from wall and desk, she flipped it around in her hand a few times, shifting her hand up and down the hilt, trying to correct her grip.

"Try it two-handed."

"This has a one-handed grip," she replied, levelling the blade and looking down the sword at him.

"Not for you," he pointed out.

She raised her eyebrows and swung the sword a few times, moving across the room through a series of forms. Reaching the far wall she stopped, turning and propping her hands on her hips, eyebrows going up again. Two-handed. Right.

Angel shook his head, his lips quirked up a little at the corners. "Fine, I was wrong."

"Was that a modified fourteenth century form?"

Buffy looked over at Wesley, standing by the door. "Huh?" Buffy searched her mind for a moment, surprised to find she came up short. Well, that was _weird_. That was the sort of thing she usually remembered. "I couldn't tell you."

"Where did you learn it? Will you do it again?"

"Was kind of hoping to go shopping so I could get out of this thing, actually," Buffy replied with a gesture down at the robe. Wesley's face fell a bit and Buffy sighed. "Okay, tell me why it's so interesting that I know how to use a sword."

"The technique we just witnessed," Wesley began. Buffy followed his look over at Angel, who looked just as confused by Wesley's interest as she felt. Good to know she wasn't alone. "It isn't something I would think Mr Giles would have taught you. There's certainly no reason why you would have been taught footwork so impeccable as to not trip over that robe even once."

Buffy frowned, a bit surprised that Wesley had even _noticed _the footwork. She certainly hadn't. And, hey—! But she thought about it instead of protesting. "Because the footwork would've been armour based, if I even knew it."

"Exactly."

"What're you saying, Wesley?" Angel asked. He crossed the room to them, stopping so that he was standing just behind her.

"May I see that pattern again, Buffy?" Wesley asked.

"Okay..." she muttered. She figured she would probably trip this time anyway, being on display and all.

Trying to remember what she had done rather than just hacking randomly, Buffy raised the sword again and moved back across the room, swinging the blade easily through the air. Right, left, across, thrust there, bring up to parry here... She turned at the desk and then made her way back across the office, working through the same motions until she was standing with Wesley and Angel again.

"He's right," Angel said. "I don't recognise the form, but it's definitely not entirely traditional, and it's coming natural enough that you had to have practiced it a lot."

"Yes. Fourteenth century, most definitely, and very formal work. I wonder..." Wesley trailed off, turning to address Angel. "I've looked more into the Kostheshr Hekmon, and I think that this technique may be a further clue as to where Buffy may have spent the last few months."

"You heard, huh?" Buffy asked. She hadn't really wanted—or needed—the reminder that she'd lost eight months somehow. Was it really all that relevant? Maybe it was starting to be, since she'd apparently picked up a new sword technique somewhere and couldn't remember learning it at all.

"Yes, Angel told me this morning." Wesley gave her a sympathetic look. "It's crucial information, Buffy."

"Yeah," Buffy muttered. "I'm sure it'll help you tons." She sounded bitter and difficult, she was sure, but she had a hard time caring. She wanted to go home. Or at least have someone explain to her what was going on. That would be nice.

* * *

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	25. Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

"What else've you got, Wesley?" Angel asked.

"Well, after you told me that Buffy," he nodded at her, "had mentioned the stone being for use by a Slayer, I cross-referenced that with something I was looking up about Illyria's powers and the defences on the Wolfram and Hart building. I didn't come up with much, of course, because even in all of our records and codices there isn't much on the subject, but I believe that the amulet has some direct relation to the Powers that Be."

Angel's lips pressed together. "The Powers that Be," he repeated after a moment. He shifted behind her, moving close enough that his unbuttoned suit jacket tickled against her back through her robe. "What would the Powers want with the Slayer?"

Wesley shook his head. "I am tempted to say, given our previous conversation, that their interest is more particularly in Buffy than simply in the Slayer."

"Any idea why?" Angel asked. He sounded like he hadn't wanted the clarification—like he might've skipped over the distinction on his own for that reason. He was still standing way-over-protectively close, too.

"Not a clue." It wasn't entirely a lie. She knew why she _had_ had the amulet, sure, but she didn't know why she still had it now, and she certainly didn't know why she was in L.A, which is what she knew they were really trying to uncover. She couldn't help with that. Telling them what had gone on in the Powers dimension would only complicate things further—and telling them before she'd spoken to some of her people just wasn't happening.

"I can keep looking," Wesley said. "There are some things I'd like to work out in their original language instead of relying on the English translation. Nuances I may have missed, you understand."

"Yeah," Angel said with a nod. "Take your time."

Wesley's lips turned up slightly, like he was making an effort at smiling but couldn't quite do it, and he backed out of the room. Stepping out in front of her and closing the door, Angel ran a hand through his hair.

"Buffy, are you keeping anything from me? Because we're here or because you don't trust me or..." He looked at her, his expression a bit pleading, and she couldn't tell if the look was because he wanted her to tell him everything she was holding back, or because he wanted her to tell him that she still trusted him.

Since she didn't think she had any reason not to trust him—except the whole CEO of Evil Inc's L.A. branch thing, which, okay, kind of a big deal—she kind of thought that it might be the former. Still, something in his expression...

"Angel, are _you_ okay?"

He turned away from her and made his way back to the desk, not actually looking at her until he'd sat down.

"Sure, just fine," he muttered. His tone of voice said that she should have known enough not to ask. Missing more things. Great.

"Are you going to talk to me about it, or just keep hurling words at me in a tone that says I should know exactly what's going on?"

He put his face in his hands. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was ready to be angry at you yesterday. And I was—really, really, angry because you'd just showed up out of the blue like that. And then all of a sudden you didn't remember anything since _August_ and so how could I be mad at you for things that happened two months ago, when you were missing eight?" He looked up at her again.

Buffy processed this all with a crease in her brow. "What happened two months ago?" she asked quietly.

"Don't worry about it. It wasn't your fault."

"Angel."

He made a frustrated noise. "And if _I_ don't want to talk about this?"

"Angel! I'm not going to fall into little pieces. Just tell me what happened."

"Fine," he growled. "We had a psychotic Slayer running around L.A.—and thanks, by the way, for telling me that there were Slayers everywhere. She got a hold of Spike, cut off his hands, and then when we tried to deal with her, our only help from your people was in the form of Andrew, who somehow, once we got our hands on her, turned up with a dozen Slayers, informed me that you no longer trusted me and that his orders were coming _straight_ from you, and took her somewhere to deal with her."

It took her most of Angel's rant to get past the 'psychotic Slayer' bit. "We did what was necessary to get rid of the First, Angel," she said. "And if my people lied to you, I apologise."

"That's it? You apologise? That's all I'm going to get from you?"

"What else do you want me to say?" she demanded. "We've already established that I wasn't here. Those weren't my words. Maybe you should have pressed harder to talk to me."

"Would've been awfully difficult, seeing as you were god-knows-where."

Ah. That was what was bothering him. "Angel, I'm sorry no one told you I was missing." She really wanted to throw up her arms and rage at him for taking this out on her, but she—somehow—couldn't. He hid it well, but the tension around his eyes had been more pronounced since she'd freaked out talking on the phone with Giles the night before.

He didn't reply, just looked down at his paperwork and started flipping through it. She sighed. Yay, moody vampire. Her favourite thing to deal with, ever.

"Can you answer a question for me?" she asked. Maybe it wasn't best to broach this, but she needed—really, really _needed_—to know where she was now. Everything matched up so well. She was nearly, very nearly, one hundred percent sure that she was in the right place. But…

Angel grunted. That was probably moody-vampire-speak for yes.

"What happened with Spike?"

Angel swore when his pen snapped in half, the barrel sending a spray of ink across his papers. Dropping the pieces and wiping at a spot of ink on the cuff of his shirt, he hit the speaker button on his phone.

"Harmony, I need a new copy of the contract with the Invisible Nunknup Clan," he said.

"_Uhh. That's a major contract, boss. I'll totally just get laughed at if I ask for it._"

"Then make Gunn do it. Just get me another copy!"

"_Sure, I'll see what I can do!"_ Harmony's trill sounded vaguely terrified.

Angel's hand came down next to the phone and he sighed, looking a bit defeated with his other hand on the bridge of his nose, elbow propped on the desk.

"Almost sorry I asked," Buffy commented. "Almost. Spike. You know."

"Why didn't you ask yesterday?"

"Does it matter?"

"Humour me, Buffy. Just... humour me," he said, still rubbing at the ink spot on his shirt. She couldn't see it from where she was, but it _had_ to be a huge smear by now.

She sighed. "I just... I was trying to get my bearings, okay?"

"And?"

"And what? It didn't cross my mind to ask about Spike."

"Buffy, I mean, I'm not complaining, but you barely even reacted when he walked in the room."

"And you have a problem with this."

He sighed. "Never mind," he said. "What did you want to know?"

His voice had become gentle enough that she was a bit worried about what was going through his mind. Whatever it was, she was pretty sure the soft tone meant he was about to try protecting her from something again. Great. Just how long was she going to have to put up with this?

"Sunnydale was completely destroyed. Spike went with it. Didn't he?"

"Yeah," Angel said. "That amulet I gave you, the one you gave to Spike? It appeared back here and he just sort of popped out of it. He was a ghost, though. Then there was some spell and it made him corporeal. None of it makes a lot of sense, and none of us are really sure who to attribute it all to. There are a lot of players around here."

"Lot of players everywhere, Angel."

She was home. She was in the right place. Right place, right timeline, right Angel, right Spike (well, kind of). Right her. That meant that she'd brought Angel back right. Everything had gone right.

It had been a long time since she'd felt this relieved.

"You okay?" Angel asked after a long moment passed between them. She nodded.

"I'm... a lot better than I was." Home! She was home!

"Good. Now we can go back to figuring out how you got here, why you're here, and whether or not I can send you back to your people right now."

"Angel," she said, frowning at him and crossing her arms.

"No. You sent me out of Sunnydale at the end because you wanted a second front. I'm doing the same thing. There's a lot going down here, and I want you in a position to pick up the ball if I drop it."

She watched him for a long moment. She didn't have to look for the lie—it was there, bald-faced. He wanted her out of the way. He wanted her somewhere so he didn't have to divide his attention 'protecting' her.

It was just too bad for him that she didn't have any intention of going anywhere.

"Okay," Buffy said, the word coming easily enough. He gave her a doubtful look, like he couldn't believe she'd let him drop the topic. She shrugged. "Next thing. Buffy needs new clothes."

Angel snorted.

-8-

Buffy regarded her reflection critically, turning a bit in the small space the bathroom offered, frowning at her appearance. She didn't trust that the amulet would be safe if she let it lying around anywhere, so she'd gone shopping to coordinate with it. It had been a bit of a nightmare—at least summer collections were starting to roll in—but she was dressed in normal clothes and had gotten out of that weird robe for the foreseeable future.

Tugging her tank top down a bit lower over her butt, Buffy turned a bit more to get a better look. A mark on her back gave her pause mid-spin.

"What—? Oh. My. God. What is _that_?" she demanded, and if her voice went up an octave or two in a bit of a squeal, it really wasn't her fault because there were some sort of markings all over what she could see of her upper shoulders. Markings that definitely had never been there before, and were definitely about the most alien thing she'd ever seen on (human) skin. Or at least on her own.

"Oh I'm going to kill him. Kill. Him. I've killed a god before, and okay, it was kind of hard but hey, he's not even really a god, he's just pretending to be one and being messenger boy for them. I can totally take him." Shaking her head and still muttering under her breath, Buffy stripped her shirt off and danced around on the spot, trying to make out more of the marks on her back.

The skin was absolutely covered, and in fine, vertical lines of symbols like some sort of language or something. She was pretty sure whatever the symbols were, they weren't in any human language. Or at least not a modern one.

"What _is_ this?"

* * *

><p><em>Chapter postings will be going back to once a week on Wednesday.<em>

_Happy New Year! _


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

Had Fake Angel's last spell done this?

Whatever the cause, whatever they were, the markings on her skin definitely looked like some sort of scarring. Given that she didn't scar easily and had absolutely no recollection—well, other than the spell—of what might've carved up her back like this, trying to figure out _why_ she'd been the recipient of reverse-plastic-surgery probably wouldn't be the most productive use of her time.

At least she was pretty sure, given the organization and, well, orderliness of it, that it was writing. Though even if that was the case—_especially_ if that was the case—the last thing she wanted was for anyone to find out about it; partly because she really didn't want to know what language it was in or what it said, and partly because it was really, _really_ ugly.

"Shirt," Buffy muttered. "Shirt... shirt..."

She grabbed her tank top off of the floor and pulled it back on, grimacing when she peered back in the mirror. The robe had completely covered up that someone, something—no, definitely _someone, _and she knew exactly who it was—had used her back as a canvas, or piece of paper. She'd picked up a blazer while she was shopping, and it would cover it up for now, but keeping _this_ covered up for any extended period of time was going to be pretty much impossible.

Still, she could try; at least until she'd figured out how she planned on presenting the whole 'by-the-way-I-just-spent-eight-months-in-another-dimension' thing.

Buffy darted into the bedroom. She grabbed the blazer off of the bed and made her way back into the bathroom where she hung it on the doorknob. Fixing her hair, then applying a bit of makeup so she wouldn't look like an utter slob, Buffy nodded at her reflection. Good enough. She was here to work, after all, not to flirt, right?

Sure.

"What's taking you so long up here? Thought you just came to—"

Buffy grabbed the blazer and threw it over her shoulders, not quite making it in time to slip the jacket on before Spike grabbed one of the sleeves.

"What's that?" he asked, pushing the jacket aside.

"Hey! Who invited you in here?" Why did she insist on hanging around with quiet, sneaky, perceptive vampires?

Spike snorted. "Angel's place, pet. Not yours. Well, not yet at least. Don't need an invite."

"Wasn't the sense I was getting at," Buffy said, pulling her blazer from him with a pointed look. He took a step back so that he was just outside of the room and raised his hands.

"Now talk to me. What the bloody hell is all over your back?"

"I don't know," Buffy said. She pulled the blazer on. "Look. All covered." She couldn't figure out, at this point, if the urge to spill everything, or the urge to shut him down and get out of here as quickly as possible, was stronger.

"Not good enough. That's scar tissue, pet. You can't tell me you don't remember—"

"I don't know where it came from. I don't remember it happening." She wished she did.

"Look, I already know you're lying to Angel. You can be straight with me, Buffy, you know that."

She flicked off the bathroom light and pushed past him, out into the bedroom. "I'm not lying to Angel." Much.

"Oh look, another lie."

Running her hand through her hair, Buffy turned to face him. "It's not like you aren't all keeping things from me too. So there are some things I haven't told Angel. So what."

Spike raised his eyebrows. "Like what?" he asked. "C'mon, Buffy. You know I don't have any reason to tell the great poof anything. Let me help you."

Buffy dropped down onto the bed. Did she want to talk to him? Oh, who was she kidding? Of course she wanted to. She needed to talk to someone and Spike, well, at least Buffy knew—or was pretty certain anyway—where she stood with him. She couldn't say the same for anyone else here.

Spike sat down next to her. "Pet?"

"The last eight months… aren't as missing as I said," she muttered, biting the bullet before she could talk herself down.

Spike made a noise that said this wasn't at all a surprise to him. Buffy glanced up, feeling a bit nervous, though she couldn't say why. Spike wouldn't pronounce judgement on her for not speaking up beforehand. Angel might, when it got back to him, but she could deal with that when it came. She and Angel probably needed to have a long talk about her rescuing him from Hell, anyway.

"The amulet didn't take me straight here," Buffy began, staring at her knees.

She recounted the story, or at least the parts she thought were relevant. Fake Angel, the training, the Time Chamber. She left out saving Angel from Hell, but she told him about the Balance Chamber, and the mosaic and what Fake Angel had told her about being a Champion and a major player in bringing light and dark back into balance.

Spike was still and silent for a long moment after she finished. Buffy fidgeted, tugging on the hem of her blazer as though it had been riding up, and slipping the button back and forth through the hole.

"That's it," she said lamely, when Spike didn't speak up at all.

He nodded. "And the bulletin board on your back?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I just noticed it too." Buffy put her head in her hands. "I just want to go home, but I don't think I can," she moaned.

Spike put a hand on her back, and she shifted to half lean into him. "Maybe you should, to hell with duty and the Powers."

Buffy gave a bark of laughter. Sure, that would go over well with everyone involved. "No, no I have to be here. I think that, whatever's coming up here, I'm going to need to help, whether I want to or not. There's probably some prophecy somewhere that decrees it."

Pulling away from Spike, who muttered something about prophecies that she didn't catch, she stood and busied herself with pulling the remainder of her clothes from their bags and piling them neatly folded on the chair. "What'd you come up here for, anyway?"

"Mostly to give you the chance to come running into my arms, all grateful that I was still alive. Well, undead. Didn't happen—"

He grinned at the disbelieving look she gave him.

"—thought it might be worth a try, though."

Buffy just shook her head.

-8-

Coming down from her room once she'd finally finished straightening out her new things, Buffy and Spike stepped out of Angel's office and into utter chaos in the lobby beyond.

There were people running everywhere; some looking like they were just desperate to get through the lobby and wherever they were going, others looking like they didn't know _why_ they were there at all. It took Buffy a moment of searching before she found Angel standing in the middle of it all.

At least, she thought it was Angel. She glanced over at Spike, but he'd burst out laughing so hard that he was doubled over with it, and clearly wasn't going to be of any help. She looked at Angel again. Or, at least, the pillar of black, red and white feathers that she was pretty sure Angel was underneath.

"What's going on here?" she demanded, trying to catch someone's eye. All of the employees carefully looked away from her though, which, honestly, she was getting used to pretty quickly. None of them had really taken well to a Slayer hanging around the office. It was actually kind of funny how fast some of them started walking when she appeared in their path.

"Demon. Duck."

Buffy ducked. After a moment, when nothing had gone flying past her head, she looked up from her crouched position.

"Huh?" she asked. Angel turned around. Only part of his face had been spared the feathering.

"Not _duck_. Duck," he said, pointing at the staircase.

Sitting on the platform with its legs pulled under it and looking utterly innocuous was a black, red and white duck.

"Demon duck," Buffy said, blinking at it. The duck blinked back. "How did that thing even get in here?"

"Someone brought it in a box," Angel said, wiping a hand through his hair and knocking some of the feathers out. Growling, he started pulling at them one at a time and dropping them to the floor.

"Aaand you thought you'd open up the box and let it out?"

"Okay, I didn't know what was in the box, Buffy! And besides, I didn't open it." A few more feathers fell to the floor and Angel started picking them off of his forehead. "The delivery guy carried it across _your_ portal or whatever," he pointed at the area of floor that was still scorched from her entry, "and the thing went crazy and almost took his head off."

"Did you just make this my fault?"

There was a red feather sticking straight up, stuck right to his hairline, and it didn't seem like he'd noticed it. She bit her lip when he started picked feathers off of his shirt, leaving the one on his head.

"No. But no one can get near the thing, and the box is in pieces so we can't even figure out who sent it or where to return it."

"I know I'd want to make sure my demon duck was going to be returned to sender if its delivery didn't go over well," Buffy said. Angel glared at her, the feather making him look ridiculous enough that she had to bite back a laugh.

"So, can we just kill it, then?" Spike asked, his laughter finally subsiding enough that he could straighten. _He_ spotted the feather, though, and it just sent him into throes again.

"If we can get at it," Angel said, sounding like he was grinding his teeth. "I've tried already." He held his arms out, as though anyone could have missed his feather covering.

"What is it, half porcupine?" Buffy asked, taking a few steps toward the stairs. The duck continued to watch her, moving its head from side to side so that it could look at her through each eye. "Maybe it's some kids' science experiment gone wrong."

"I don't care what it _is_, Buffy, I just want it out of my lobby."

"Don't you have people to deal with this sort of thing?" She looked over at Harmony's desk. No one sitting behind it. Of course.

"Right now? Apparently not," Angel said with a sweeping gesture. Buffy sighed, her eyes falling on a secretary with a pile of papers in her arms who had stopped as soon as she'd come off of the elevator.

"Lemme guess. You need to go upstairs."

The woman nodded, her gaze darting from Buffy to the duck to Angel to the duck to the still laughing Spike and then Buffy once more before looking back at the duck. She didn't look away from the duck again.

"Okay," Buffy said with a sigh. "But this thing had better not ooze and ruin this jacket, or something." She pulled her stake from her waistband and began to take slow steps toward the duck. It continued staring at her.

Ten feet away, Buffy raised her arm, pulling it back and ready to hurl the stake.

She blinked at an explosion of feathers around the duck, and when they'd all fallen the thing had a ruler cutting its head in half.

"Or that could work," Buffy said, stunned. Her gaze landed on red leather and travelled up, up, and up a little bit more until it landed on the unfamiliar face of a girl who looked like she'd tried to give herself blue streaks and had a hard time finding where her forehead ended and her hair started.

"Xhegeltinger," the girl said. "As easy to kill as humans."

Buffy's eyebrows went up and she looked over at Angel. "Introductions, please?"


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Spike sobered up almost instantly, and Buffy saw the two men exchange looks. The girl glanced back and forth between them for a moment, then turned her attention on Buffy. It wasn't comfortable. She seemed way more interested in Buffy than she really should have been and that... that just felt weird.

"This is Illyria, Buffy," Angel said. He stopped pulling at the feathers and looked at the two of them, looking attentive to the focus the other girl had on Buffy. Illyria. That was that weird, unfamiliar name she'd heard Wesley mention, and Spike when he'd said that he didn't want to spar with her.

She could see why. Illyria was clearly some type of weird humanoid-demon thing. Fast, too. Buffy hadn't even seen her move when she'd killed the Xhe—demon duck thing.

"Illyria, this is Buffy."

"She is the Slayer?" Illyria asked, walking toward Buffy. Buffy straightened, though the demon stood enough taller than her that it didn't matter. "I did not think Slayers were as magical as this one is."

Buffy refused to look around at Spike and Angel. She could imagine the look Spike was wearing, given their conversation and that he'd seen all the weird marks on her back, but she didn't want Angel to be able to read anything from whatever her expression said.

"Buffy's a bit different," Spike said. Buffy frowned at him. "What? Take a compliment, love!"

"Quite different," Illyria said. Tilting her head to the side—looking a lot like the duck, actually—Illyria reached a hand up toward the amulet. Buffy stepped back before she could touch it.

"Thaaat's close enough," she said.

"I do not know this object," Illyria said. "Something so powerful; I feel I should know it." She appealed to Spike with a wide-eyed look.

"Dunno, pet," Spike said gently. "We're not really sure about it either."

"But you wear it." The demon's focus was on Buffy again. "So you surely know it."

"Uhh. Kinda... not really, no."

Illyria looked confused. Good, because that meant she was finally starting to feel like Buffy had felt during this whole exchange. How had she known the amulet had power? Even Willow hadn't been able to sense it. Then again, hadn't Wesley said something about nearing Illyria's power, something-something, regarding how Buffy had ended up here?

She should probably keep that in mind, maybe.

Illyria took a step back. "Then you are a fool, if you are dealing in objects of power you do not understand."

"Well, I wouldn't say that," Buffy muttered.

Illyria tossed her head, looking about ready to say something else, but Angel stepped in between them. "Spike, could you take Illyria somewhere?"

Illyria looked up at him, her eyes wide and challenging. "I do not need an escort."

"Don't you like Spike's company?" Angel asked, sounding exasperated.

"I suppose that it is... adequate," Illyria replied. Spike snorted.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm no Wesley. C'mon, pet, let's go find you some weapons to play with or something, so that you can stop with the deadly office supplies."

They walked off, Illyria looking back a couple of times to peer at Buffy through her hair.

"What was that—_Who_ was that?"

"Illyria," Angel said, the name clipped. Then, "Can I get someone in here to clean this up?" A flurry of activity started and Angel looked around, as though making absolutely sure his orders were being followed, before turning and heading into his office.

Buffy followed him. "And Illyria is a..."

"She's an Old One, trapped in a human body," he said, dropping heavily into his chair.

"An Old One what?" Buffy asked. She wasn't trying to piss him off—she could see that there was something going on here that she had missed before, or only seen glimpses of, and that that thing was shining through again—but the short answers really weren't going to help them get past this topic any faster.

Angel only sighed. "Demon. One of the ones that used to rule the earth."

"And she's here now... How?"

There was so much pain in Angel's eyes when he looked up at her that Buffy immediately regretted the tone she'd used to ask the question. She was being flippant. This clearly wasn't something she should be being flippant about.

"It's a long... Buffy, I don't want to talk about this, okay?"

She let it go. She let it go because he was trying to be angry and couldn't be, so whatever this was hit him a lot deeper than he was going to let her know. That was okay. She could deal with that. It was going to frustrate her, but she could totally deal with it.

Maybe Spike knew. But no, everyone had been edgy, even Spike. Illyria had to be why. At least she'd met her, now.

Buffy came around the desk and put her hand on Angel's arm. He didn't look up at her, preferring to stare at nothing on the top of his desk, but his hand came up to cover and then grip hers. "Will you tell me when you're ready?" she asked.

He squeezed her fingers. "You'll find out from someone else before then."

"Okay," she replied. Then she just stood there with Angel holding her hand, as a silence fell over them that the noise of the people out in the lobby buffeted against but couldn't quite shatter.

-8-

A couple of hours later saw Buffy with Angel's cell phone pressed to her ear, the tone sounding over and over and over as the call tried to connect. She could imagine it ringing off the hook, trying to get Giles' attention way over in Britain. Especially since apparently he still hadn't gotten any form of answering system.

Buffy tapped her finger on the bedspread, pulling her feet up and curling into a little ball against the headboard. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Where was Giles, anyway?

"We're sorry, your call could not be completed as dialled."

Rolling her eyes, Buffy disconnected the call and hit redial, listening to the series of beeps as the phone processed the numbers. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hello?" Giles' voice was muddled enough that Buffy started, thinking the worst until her eyes fell on the clock. Seven pm in L.A. meant... Oops.

"Uh, oops. Did I wake you up?"

"Ah, Buffy. No, not at all. Just give me one moment," he said. She heard shuffling on the other end, and then the rustling of papers, and the scraping of something against the phone.

"I forgot about the more-than-continental sized time difference," Buffy said.

"It's not a problem," Giles said. "Really, Buffy. I'm glad you called. Our last conversation didn't end on the most satisfying note."

"Uhh. Yeah," she muttered, feeling embarrassed. It really hadn't. He was being very British about it. "I'm a bit more here-and-now Buffy, now."

"That's good news, at least. Will you—will you be returning to England any time soon? Most of the girls in the unit that were here in the summer have relocated to Scotland. We've procured property there."

Buffy made a noise in her throat. _Would _she be leaving L.A. soon? "I don't know, Giles. I think Angel's mixed up in some stuff and I... well there's a lot I need to talk to you about, but on a more secure line."

"Buffy, it would really be best if you didn't stay at Wolfram and Hart any longer than absolutely necessary." He'd woken up more now. His voice was clearer, and he almost sounded like he was scribbling something down, or maybe still digging through a drawer. She wasn't really sure what that noise was.

"Yeah, I know. Giles, I need to know what else you've found out about the amulet-thingy since I've been gone. Wesley hasn't got much."

"We don't know very much more, Buffy. Was there anything in particular you were looking for?"

Buffy frowned, wondering if she dare mention the dream aloud. She would be shocked if Wolfram and Hart's Senior Partners, or some other creepy little part of the firm, _didn't_ have access to everything she said, Angel's "private" line or not. Then again, it was probably going to get aired eventually anyway. And she was physically in the building. Oh, what the hell.

"I need to know if it's got a twin."

"You think there's another one?" Giles asked. Frantic shuffling on the other line, then a crash and Giles swore. "Buffy—Can I call you back in the morning?"

"You don't know anything about a second amulet?"

"No, but if you believe there's a second one..." he paused. "Why do you believe there's a second one?"

"Funky dream."

"Prophetic? You're sure?"

"More like a visitation. It wasn't some regular run-of-the-mill dream."

Giles 'hmmed'. "I'll begin searching immediately. If there's a second, there could have been something missed in the files that we would have found if we weren't looking in a narrow one-of-a-kind scope. Buffy, have you told anyone else about this? At all?"

"No one. Planning on keeping it that way right now, too." She'd left the second amulet out of her conversation with Spike. Had, in fact, left out Fake Angel's dream visit entirely. She hadn't really thought anything of it, but Giles reaction was making her glad that it had, essentially, slipped her mind.

"That would be best. I will call you as soon as I find anything at all."

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

Stretching her legs out, Buffy rolled her eyes upward, staring at the ceiling and thinking back to that dream. Beyond her positivity that Fake Angel had actually been visiting her, and that it hadn't been a random dream, her surety about the nature of the message he'd passed on plummeted. She had to get the black amulet from Fake Angel? Or had he been trying to pretend like he was real-Angel and saying that Angel actually had the amulet and she had to get it from him?

She didn't know, and it hurt her head just thinking about it. Hopefully whatever Giles was going to have to tell her about all of this—if he found anything, anyway—would shine some light on it all. Whatever the black amulet was, it had something to do with why the Powers had dumped her in L.A. instead of letting her go back to Britain and the ever-pressing responsibilities there.

Her girls. Giles hadn't said anything, at least not really, but he had to have wanted to tell her off for hanging around in L.A. She could only imagine what was going through _his_ head, what with her staying with Angel and all. ...and she was pretty sure Giles didn't even _know_ about Spike.

Okay, well, given that Andrew had apparently been around for a little while, maybe he did. That didn't make her situation any better.

But she was working! Right? She was staying in L.A. because there was something apocalyptic brewing, and she needed to find out more about it before it blew up all over the place. And yes, okay, she hoped she could help Angel a little, because really, that's what she'd been dropped here to do. She wasn't here for any other reason. There wasn't even much else on her mind. Right? Right.

That was her story, and she was sticking to it.


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"You were really in a hurry to get me out of there. I'm going to assume this place is better than the hole in the ground you lived in in Sunnydale," Buffy commented. She'd been in L.A. long enough that Spike had started turning a little more insistent that she get out with him—alone—rather than spending all of her time in Wolfram and Hart (and presumably, around Angel).

Spike turned so that he was facing her and walking backward down the sidewalk. "At least I have a place. You're sleeping on Angel's couch."

"It's a spare room, Spike," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Bet there're absolutely no ulterior motives involved in letting you sleep there, either."

"Are you really going to do this again? Now?" she asked.

His lips twisted. "No. Fine." They'd started going down a staircase before he spoke again. "I can take him, you know."

"Uh huh."

"Well, I can!"

"Spike..."

Spike pushed the door open. "Home, sweet home," he said. She stepped in and looked around.

"So, glorified hole in the ground, then?" she asked, noting the lack of windows. Perfect for a vampire. At least it had finished walls.

"Ha, _ha_. Sit." He pointed at the couch, moving over to the fridge as she went to sit down. "I have... beer and blood. Huh."

"I'll pass." She took in the video game system sitting on the floor, contemplating it for a long moment. It felt good to be out of Wolfram and Hart, at least. She didn't know if it was the office's reputation, or something about the unconsecrated ground the building had been constructed on, but the longer she spent there, the more her skin crawled. Maybe it was just a Slayer thing.

Spike dropped onto the couch beside her, warm mug of blood in hand.

"Therapy." She raised an eyebrow, then realised she was still staring at the video game system. "Got my hands cut off by a Slayer."

"Oh. Right. I was told about that." She could just barely make out a faint scar line on an exposed part of his wrist that got covered when he shifted.

"Little sympathy would be nice. You could even fake it. I mean, I got my _hands _cut off."

"Hooray, Angel works for an evil inter-dimensional law firm?" she offered. She knew she was supposed to side with him, but, despite the circumstances, it was hard to side against one of her girls. _Really_ hard to side against one of her girls.

Spike just glared at her.

"What? Why'd you drag me all the way out here, anyway?"

"Thought maybe we could go kill things. Make a date of it."

"Spike..." she murmured again, looking away from him and down at the floor. At least he made it clear where she stood with him. Nicer than being around Angel, who'd been almost totally unreadable the whole time she'd been here. Except for bursts of anger and random moments of over-protectiveness that felt like they almost might've been purely habitual.

Yeah, knowing where she stood was nice after all that.

"I was joking, pet." He drained his mug and put it on the floor by his feet, then swung his arm up onto the back of the couch. "Well, mostly. Wanted to see if I could convince you to talk to me more about your newly unveiled destiny."

Buffy pressed her lips together. Right. That. And he accused _Angel_ of having ulterior motives. She stood, back to him, and began to explore the little apartment. "What else is there to talk about? I talked to Giles, he's working on it."

"Think he's going to be able to help?" Spike asked. He sounded doubtful, but he didn't have the key piece of the story that Giles was actually working on.

"Sure," Buffy replied. "Well, mostly sure. I guess it's a less-than-awesome arrangement, with the distance and everything, but we'll deal."

"Could have Wesley working on it too."

Buffy made a face at him. Yeah, it had been a long time since Wesley had been a Watcher, and yes, she could admit that he'd changed quite a bit, but… Maybe she just missed her friends and her own people, but she really didn't want to work with Wesley. And, okay, major bad-first impression bias.

Spike snorted. "Seeing as you're living with Angel and all, it's bound to come out sometime." He gave her a pointed look. "You mentioned the new scars yet?"

"I'm getting to it. I'm going to." Buffy paused. Well, dropping this all on Angel would probably let her know where she stood with him, anyway. Or just lead to another argument. Yeah, that would be fun. "And, by the way, I'm not _living_ with Angel, I'm just staying with him," she replied.

"Same thing."

She crossed her arms. "Was that it, Spike? You dragged me all the way out here to—"

"No. That wasn't all," he admitted. "I was... well I was hoping you'd stay here tonight. And I thought if I waited to mention it..." Buffy opened her mouth to respond, not even really sure what she was going to say, but he ploughed right on. "You keep making sure to say you're just staying with Angel 'cause he's got a bed, and I meant what I said a couple days ago. You can have the bed. I'll take the couch. Don't really need the sleep much anyway."

"Spike," she said, cutting off his ramble before it could go any further. Something in her countenance made his expression turn hopeful. "Fine. I'll timeshare. Couple of nights with Angel, couple of nights with you. Okay?" Was she seriously accommodating this? It was like she _wanted_ them to fight over her or something.

Then again, less creepy-crawly-seriously-need-to-kill-things feelings if she stayed here.

"How about 75/25 here?"

She gave him a flat look. "I'll decide, thanks."

"Well it was worth a shot. Something to think about!"

Buffy just shook her head.

-8-

Giles called back the next day. A godsend, as it turned out, because Angel had been being weird—intermittently cagey and sulky, like he was upset at her for staying at Spike's, but was trying to hide it from her, or was trying to hide something else from her or... something. She didn't know, and she hadn't asked. It wasn't like Angel had been forthcoming about anything else, why should he be willing to answer any questions today? She'd probably find out whatever it was eventually. When he got around to telling her. Probably.

"So, what'cha got for me?" Buffy asked, twirling the end of her ponytail and leaning over the desk so that the phone cord wasn't pulled too far. She'd kinda been hoping Giles would call back on the cell phone so she could do this away from everyone—or, well, Angel, since he was the only one here—but the line, apparently, hadn't been priority.

"I'm afraid to say that I haven't been able to find very much about a second amulet."

"But 'not-very-much' isn't nothing, right?"

"Well..." Giles trailed off. "It's all very confusing. Possibly more confusing than the inscriptions I found originally that simply concerned the Kostheshr Hekmon. The second amulet, if indeed it exists, isn't meant for the Slayer at all."

That sounded right. Buffy made a noise to tell Giles to continue.

"I can't translate the term though. Perhaps you can get Wesley to have a look at it? It's..."

"Not something I'm going to be able to spell," Buffy interrupted. Vampire. It probably said vampire. Or maybe god, depending on who she was supposed to be getting the thing from and who it was for.

"Ah. Of course. I'll just... I'll see what else I can make of it. Unless you could put him on the line?"

"Giles. I trust you to do this, okay? I mean you've only been looking for what, less than a day?"

Giles made an understanding noise. "If it's not urgent, then. I'll continue to work on it. Perhaps Willow will be of help..." he trailed off. "Yes. Well, I'll go and—"

"Bye, Giles," she said, hanging up with a bit of a laugh.

"Second amulet?" Angel prompted when she turned back around. "When did you find out about a second amulet?" He was sitting at the other end of the room, on one of the couches by the window, but any semblance of privacy the distance provided was shattered by the whole speaking-as-though-he'd-been-privy-to-the-conversation thing.

"Weird dream," Buffy replied, walking over to sit beside him. "I think it's probably crucial, though."

"And you didn't mention this before now… why?"

Buffy gave him an exasperated look. Why, indeed. "I was getting my people to check it out first, Angel. We don't even know if it has anything to do with anything here, so why would I bother your people with it?"

"Because you're here, Buffy. You are _here_ and we already know that there has to be some reason for it. This dream you had could be part of the key to figuring out what that reason is."

"And if it's not?"

Angel just looked at her, clearly waiting for her to retract the stupid statement. Of course it was relevant to her being here. She didn't, however, think that the second amulet was going to lead them to any real conclusions.

"I just…" Buffy trailed off and shook her head. "Fine. There's a second amulet. It's probably black. I may have to find it. I have no idea where it might be. Happy?"

The look continued. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"I'll make sure Wesley knows."

"Fine."

They were silent for a long moment. Angel studied her, his gaze flickering to the amulet more than once, looking on the verge of saying something. He opened his mouth twice to speak, both times following the motion with a frustrated look that had him pinching his lips together again almost immediately. The words made it out the third time.

"Are we fighting?"

"We? No. You? Uh, yeah."

He gave her a frustrated look. "It takes two to—" Swallowing his words and apparently realising he was proving her point, Angel shut up. "You're instigating, too," he said, not looking at her.

"Benefit of losing eight months. I get a pass." He brought his head back up and she smiled at him, trying to take the edge off because his look said he really didn't appreciate her making light of her 'disappearance'.

"You haven't remembered anything?" he asked. "Not even when you had that dream? Nothing?"

Buffy hesitated. It had gotten really, really easy to lie about this, since—as it turned out—there was so much she really didn't remember. Fake Angel's words about how time passed in the Power's dimension kept coming back to her, too. How she had done a lot of things that she just couldn't remember, because time didn't exist there.

It still didn't make any sense. Really, really didn't, but Buffy couldn't deny that she'd seen results of what _had_ to be that stuff she couldn't remember. The sword technique. The robe. The scarring.

The scarring. Spike had been more concerned about it than she was, and since _she_ was the one dealing with the realisation that she could never wear a bikini again, that was a pretty big deal. She could tell Angel about that. She _should_ tell Angel about it.

"So, a second amulet..." Angel said.

Or she could let him divert the topic. No. No, she couldn't. Dammit. She should've told him and Spike together. Doing this twice was hard.

"No, wait. We need to talk."

Angel's brow furrowed. "That sounds a bit ominous," he murmured.

She gave him a tight smile and leaned back into the couch, the door handles across from them suddenly very, very interesting. "So you've totally probably already figured this out, but I may have, uhh… Stretched the truth a little when I said I…" she paused and glanced over at him. He was frowning.

"How much?" he asked when she didn't start speaking again.

"Enough to know what the amulet does and where I probably picked up weird medieval sword forms, not enough to know why I had that dream or what this second amulet's all about."

Angel was silent for a long moment and she wondered if maybe he was waiting for her to elaborate. Should she? She didn't really want to talk about bringing him back from hell. It was it the past here, and it wasn't like she needed recognition for it, or anything. She'd done what she had to do. For that matter, even if Fake Angel had said Angel knew—or had an idea—of what had happened back then, she didn't want to bring it up if he was wrong.

"And not enough to know why you're here?" Angel asked.

She thought about Cordelia's words for a moment, how she'd said that Angel needed someone to keep him on the straight and narrow, then her mind jumped to Fake Angel's clarification. What Cordelia said she had to do here wasn't entirely accurate, and she knew that, but it wasn't everything. In fact, Buffy could say almost certainly that it wasn't anywhere near everything.

"No. Just know that right now, there's that second amulet."

Angel shifted a little closer to her and she met him halfway, finding herself staring at their thighs which were almost, but not quite, touching. Unable to figure out what to do with the hand closest to him, she let it sit on her thigh, feeling awfully awkward.

"Right," Angel murmured.

"Yeah. And it sounds like there's a good old fashioned quest to get it, which I'm thinking is going to be a serious nightmare."

Angel shifted, and she looked back up at him to find him smiling. "Sounds fun. When do we leave?"

"We?" Oh, no.

It wasn't that she and Angel didn't know_ how_ to work well together but... Okay, yes it was.

Angel had been way too much a big part of her life for long enough that she knew if they weren't dating—or coupley at all—that they just weren't going to be able to function. They would fight and argue and get in each other's way and... Well, do pretty much everything that they were doing now. Not to mention that she had absolutely no idea where she was supposed to find the second amulet, and she could already hear the arguments _that_ would lead to.

She and Angel couldn't be "just" friends. They'd learned that years ago. And even now, four years removed, she didn't think they had a hope in hell of falling into some sort of platonic partnership. No freaking way.

"Yeah," Angel said. He actually sounded excited by the whole prospect. Great. She so didn't need this.

"_We_ don't leave at any point, Angel. I mean, for all I know I'm going to be trekking out into the middle of the desert at noon."

"Or you might not be, and you might need help. We'll find out where you're going, and then we'll work out details."

He was serious. Buffy thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to have backup, but backup that was going to question and challenge _everything _she did would not be so nice.

"The last amulet, this one," she pointed at the piece hanging around her neck. "Was in Britain."

"Location's not really a problem, Buffy. I'll have Wesley look into where we might find the second. Hopefully it won't take too much time, and then we can go and get it and figure out what it's for."

"You're going to have to promise to follow my lead if you want to come with me," she said. Was she intentionally challenging and provoking him? Oh, yeah.

"You quest, your lead," he agreed.

Suspicious, Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. "Then I'm all out of protests, I guess." Right. Please be trekking out into the middle of the desert at noon. There was a trick. Where was the trick?

She was searching his face for it when the bit of a smile that had been playing on Angel's lips through their exchange grew broader, and he leaned over and kissed her.


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Her hand went from resting on her thigh to gripping his arm, a thrill running through her at the touch of his lips on hers. An instant of her mind comparing this to Fake Angel's kiss—god, how had she even thought they could compare?—and she was lost. His hands on her waist and at the nape of her neck, pulling her close, safe, _wanted_. Her other hand found the side of his face, the bristly ends of the hair by his ears tickling against her fingers.

They shouldn't be doing this. They _so _shouldn't be doing this and, dammit. He'd started it so she was going to have to be the responsible one who—

They parted just long enough for her to shift positions and slide her hand to the back of his head, then met again, his lips a little warmer than before with the heat they'd stolen from hers.

—The responsible one who ended this—because, and it had taken a little bit but her brain was finally caught up with her hormones, they were still in his office and _anyone_ could walk in.

Buffy pulled back just far enough to meet his eyes. Without really noticing, she'd moved and was sitting sideways on his lap. Comfy, but just a liiittle compromising.

"Okay," she said, a little breathless. "So, a week before the hormones won out. Good new record for us to beat."

Angel made a soft noise, a strange expression crossing his face before his gaze shuttered. If she hadn't been sitting on him and wondering what he was thinking, she probably would've missed it altogether. Buffy nudged the hand still holding her waist and slipped from his lap, amused by the way his fingers trailed through her hair before his hand dropped, empty.

"Angel? Still with me here?"

"Yeah," he murmured. Then, "Huh?" as he blinked and refocused on her. "Oh, right. Hormones. Bad." He shifted, looking uncomfortable. With a bit of a laugh, she reached out and straightened his lapels.

"Very concise."

-8-

"I believe I've located it!"

Buffy looked up from her box of take out noodles and across the penthouse to the open elevator and Wesley. There was a massive tome in his hands, papers sticking out from between its pages that looked covered in writing. Maybe translations, or something. One of them distinctly looked like it might be a map of California.

"Angel's in the shower," she said. "Take a seat, Wes."

He did, and started to lay out the papers. Buffy leaned over to look at them. The book wasn't in anything that even resembled English, but a lot of Wesley's notes were. Or at least they were partially in English. That was something.

"So? Where're we going?" she asked, looking at the map upside-down. Wesley had scrawled something across a portion of it and marked up a large area around... "...Sunnydale. Of course. Except Sunnydale doesn't exist anymore."

"Well, no. I am aware, but I suspect that won't make very much difference to the location of the amulet," Wesley said.

"Except maybe have left it destroyed," Buffy said.

Wesley shook his head and pulled one of the papers to the top of the pile. Pointing at a part of the page as though she could actually read whatever dead language it was in order to check his work, he said, "You see? I believe the amulet—well, the pair of them, actually—to be virtually indestructible."

"You don't think something that took out a Hellmouth could destroy a so-called indestructible amulet?" Buffy asked.

"I'll concede your point, of course, Buffy, but I believe that since the destruction of the Hellmouth was done from the _inside_ of it... It was, wasn't it?"

Buffy nodded.

"Then, despite Sunnydale and its surrounding area having been completely wiped from the map, I believe if we can locate the point where the amulet was left, it should still be retrievable."

"That's good to hear. Where was it left?" Angel asked. Buffy looked over, her eyebrow quirked at bit at his standing there in just a pair of sweatpants. Oh, boy. Apparently not noticing her looking at him, or, well, more likely just not caring, Angel continued rubbing a towel over his head to dry his hair.

"That's where it all becomes vague," Wesley admitted, glancing between them. "There's a network of caves in Sunnydale, or at least there was, somewhere around here..." he pulled out a different map. This one showed the terrain of the city in more detail.

"Sort of near the university, yeah," Buffy said. The men looked at her. "There was one way back when we were fighting Adam that was connected in with the military base. All that's gone, though. It was eaten by the magics that made the crater."

"It's my belief that part of the cave network may still be there," Wesley said. "Protected, in a sense. The charts of the caverns that I was able to locate simply... stop. Very abruptly. It seems, at first, as though the speleologists who were charting the area simply reached the end of the caves." Here he pulled another chart out and laid it across the table, tracing a dark line with his finger.

"However, I was able to locate a chart in Wolfram and Hart's records that was made by a demon, rather than human, spelunker. You see how he has replaced this line with a symbol instead?"

She leaned closer, looking back and forth between the two charts. The human-made one was neat, with typed up labels and simple symbols to denote hills and squishy sections. The demon-made one was a lot messier, but also a lot more detailed. Even the entrance to the military base appeared to be on it, which was interesting since she'd been pretty sure no one had really known about the Initiative—and if this demon had, why hadn't he warned some of the others so that fewer got caught by the military?

"So what does the dashed-squiggly line mean?" Buffy asked, trying to find it somewhere else on the chart.

"Well, that's just it. I haven't any idea, because the symbol isn't in the map's legend."

"How're we supposed to find an entrance to a collapsed cave system, Wesley?" Angel asked.

Buffy, however, leaned back over the map. Something had begun niggling in the back of her mind when Wesley had expressed his confusion, and she had almost, _almost _figured out what it might be.

"Okay. Tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but... When Will brought my amulet back, and she was talking about it with Giles. They mentioned that it... That everything that was written about it was weird. Like it had just appeared out of nowhere and no one had actually ever written it even though the sources and whatever were thousands of years old and in a bunch of dead languages."

She met Wesley's rapt attention; then looked over at Angel's calculating look. "Could that have something to do with this?" she asked.

"Yes. Yes, of course!" Wesley said. "I would need to do a carbon analysis to be sure, but I suspect for this it doesn't matter. The line, this dashed squiggle, was quite possibly not placed here by the original author of the map at all." Frantically piling his papers together with the cavern map on top, Wesley nodded to himself. "I'll run this to the lab and have—"

"They can do an analysis there and get the results back to you," Angel said. Buffy frowned at the expression that had spread across Wesley's face when he cut himself off. Angel looked sad again, too. A bit more of the mysterious tragedy that seemed to surround Illyria? Or something else? "The sun's just started to set, so Buffy and I should get going. You can call me when you get the results, if we're not back by then."

"Yes... yes, I think that would be best," Wesley said, collecting himself. Buffy's gaze flicked over to Angel.

"Still doesn't tell us how we're supposed to find a cave entrance in a couple hundred miles of crater," Buffy said.

"That won't be the difficult part," Wesley said. "I could probably produce a coordinate for you, but unless I'm very much mistaken, the Kostheshr Hekmon—" Wesley nodded to the amulet around Buffy's neck "—should lead you where you need to go."

For some reason, Buffy felt like that weirdly paralleled her Angel-rescue mission. Maybe it was just that the amulets seemed to be a set, and that the rings most definitely had been. And maybe now she was looking for connections where there really weren't any.

Then again, this all clearly had something to do with the Powers because the amulets were from the Powers themselves, and rescuing Angel had been her working for the Powers. So then, was all of this related? Was she here now, going on a quest with Angel, because the Powers had dumped her here to make her go on a quest with Angel?

That didn't explain why she couldn't remember so many of the things that had happened to her, but it might just answer the question of why she'd been sent here. And that was a start. It was about time.

"Yeah, okay," Buffy said. "I can buy that."

-8-

"I still don't think you coming along is the greatest idea," Buffy said. She'd been standing in the motor pool, looking at Angel's large collection of evil but definitely very, very shiny and expensive cars, for at least half an hour. Waiting for him. What he'd been doing she had absolutely no idea, but he'd gone from being all gung-ho about getting out of L.A. and making the drive to the-place-that-was-once-Sunnydale to guy-that-was-dragging-his-heels, and it was tying _her_ up.

"You agreed," Angel pointed out, opening the passenger door of one of the cars for her. He waited until she'd rolled her eyes and climbed in, then closed the door and walked around the car to drop the weapons in the trunk, before hopping into the driver's side.

"Yeah, I agreed," Buffy said, albeit grudgingly. That had been _before_ the little make out session in his office. But kissing didn't have to have changed anything, right? "I just think I could do this more easily. I mean, we have to go crawling through caves, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm a lot more compact than you are."

Angel snorted. "I doubt that's going to be a problem." He turned on the car with a bit of a glance over his shoulder.

"Well I'm not standing around waiting while you hack at narrow passageways to make them wide enough for you."

"I'm not changing my mind," he said. "And besides, you have to get to Sunnydale somehow." She frowned at him when he reached into the backseat and knocked a bunched up blanket out of the way.

"Ouch! What're you—Hey, let go!" Came a shout in a rough accent as Spike's blonde head came up, dragged by Angel's hand fisted in the collar of his coat.

"You're not coming, Spike!"

Spike shook off Angel's hand.

"Already in the car, aren't I? And hey, _I_ won't have any troubles going cave-crawling." Spike straightened his coat as he spoke and then settled into the backseat.

Angel glared at Buffy, like it was her fault Spike had stowed away. She ignored him. Was it her fault? Maybe. But a third person coming along with them on this jaunt—especially Spike—meant they were just going to have to focus on their objective, and she didn't need to worry about whether or not that kiss had meant anything to Angel. Or figure out what it had meant to her.

It was just a kiss, right?

"If you're coming, he might as well, too," Buffy said. Angel muttered something noncommittal, put the car into the drive and pulled out of the motor pool.

"How did you even know which car we were going to take?" he growled after a moment.

"You're not as hard to figure out as you think you are, mate." Then, "Look, there's even benefit to it for you! This way, the wolfie girlfriend can be absolutely sure you're not on a date with your ex!"

Buffy turned to look at Spike fast enough that she was pretty sure she would've given herself whiplash if she didn't have superpowers. Her eyes were wide. Angel had a girlfriend? _Angel_?

Okay, maybe she shouldn't have been so shocked. Angel was attract— fine, gorgeous. And a whole bunch of other things she wasn't going to start listing in her head right now. But, a _girlfriend_? An actual girl that he was seeing? Why hadn't she been told about this before now? More importantly, why had he kissed her if he was seeing _someone else?_

"She has a name, Spike," Angel said.

"What _is_ her name?" Buffy asked, in a weird tone she didn't recognise and she hadn't meant to let slip through.

"Nina," Angel said. "Her name's Nina."

"Okay, and how long have you been dating?"

They stopped at a red light and Angel turned to look at her. "Third degree, huh?" He sounded amused, but there was a wary look in his eye. Good. He deserved to be wary.

"I've been in L.A. for almost a week. How have you not mentioned her to me by now? How have I not met her by now? I'm staying in your condo!"

"Half the time," Angel pointed out. "She knows about you."

"Well, I'd hope so," Buffy said, shaking her head. Pausing a moment to let this all sink in, Buffy adopted a more playful tone. "So, what's she like?"

"Small, blonde and supernatural," Spike offered.

Plastic creaked as Angel's grip turned white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

"What flavour?" Buffy asked. She didn't know if Spike's comment was supposed to upset her or piss her off, but she was determined—absolutely determined—to let it do neither. Sure, she still had feelings for Angel. And yeah, those feelings had been all shaken up the day before. But since she knew that he still had feelings for her too, that was okay. Angel moving on was good. Better than good.

"Werewolf," Angel said.

"Do I get to meet her?"

Angel glanced over at her again. "I'm not really sure that's a good idea."

"I solemnly swear not to beat her up in an alley." She thought about that for a moment. "Or, well, anywhere, but especially not in an alley."

"He started it," Angel said. It sounded like an automatic response.

"Uh huh. Guilty conscience," she said, remembering the day he and Riley had shown up, beat up, at her dorm room door. "So? Do I get to meet Nina?" Buffy asked again.

As though he could see Spike in it, Angel glared at the rear view mirror.


	30. Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

"Any luck?" Buffy called, shining her flashlight out over the section of crater wall they were searching and at Angel and then Spike. The vampires threw an arm up to cover their eyes. Buffy cringed. "Whoops, sorry!"

"I've got nothing," Spike called, jamming his hands in his pockets and kicking a rock. "Isn't your fancy bauble supposed to be doing all the work for us?"

Buffy looked down at the stone in her hand. It _was_ supposed to be doing the work. At least, that had been Wesley's theory, and at the time, it'd made perfect sense to her. Of course, she'd also been equating it to everything that had come before—as though the Powers actually did things that made logical sense to anyone else. Nothing having to do with Fake Angel had been straightforward so far—and it certainly hadn't been transparent, either. Instead it was all opaque, opaque, opaque.

She probably had to do something with the amulet to find this cave entrance, but what? Nothing she'd learned about it really covered _this_.

Spike and Angel walked over to her. "I'll call Wesley for that coordinate," Angel said. "We should have gotten it in the first place instead of assuming the magics would do what we wanted." He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open, frowning as he fumbled with the keypad.

"I'm going to keep looking," Buffy said, unconvinced that a coordinate would help them any more than wandering had so far. After all, they knew where they were going. It was just a matter of figuring out if their destination actually still existed. She'd only made it a few more steps before Angel swore behind her. Turning back, eyebrows raised, she gave him an amused once over.

Angel stood scowling at the phone display. Spike had wandered off again, making a show of looking around. Snickers, probably directed at Angel, floated back to them.

"No signal?" Buffy asked.

"No signal," Angel muttered in agreement. He flipped the phone shut with a snap and shoved it in his pocket. "Don't know why anyone bothered inventing them when they never work."

"Look where we are, Angel," Buffy said, and swept her arm out at the expanse of rockiness surrounding them. He scowled, and Buffy offered him a tight smile for his frustration before turning back to her search. She skirted around a couple of larger rocks in her path, checking over her shoulder once to see if Spike and Angel were following.

They weren't. They'd spread back out, surveying the terrain, but not looking like they were putting much effort into it anymore. No real wonder why. They'd been out here for a couple of hours already, still had tons of ground to cover, and were looking for a cave entrance in a crater. At night. With only her flashlight and the theory that the amulet might help them.

This wasn't the greatest idea they'd ever had.

'_Okay. Less with the pessimism, more with the magicky amulet.'_

Buffy looked down at it. Fake Angel had said she needed to get the black amulet from him. Get it from him; give it to Angel for who-knew-what reason.

The only part of _that_ that added up to it being under Sunnydale was her having been in L.A. when she'd learned about the second amulet, and Wesley's notes that seemed to back it up. But just as everything Willow and Giles had found out about her own amulet had apparently just appeared and directed them to the amulet's Britain location, Buffy suspected whatever was going on here was the same. The amulet would be here, because the Powers needed them to find it, and this was where they were looking.

Maybe she should bring that theory to Spike and Angel. Bolster the spirits of the troops, and all.

Buffy turned, finding the two vampires some two hundred feet away, searching a higher part of the crater wall. Okay, maybe not. They were still looking anyway, and the cave really had to be found if they had any hope of moving forward on this—the alternative, if the sun came up too soon, was either driving back to L.A. or sitting in the car with its U.V.-proof windows all day while they waited for the sun to set again. More trapped-in-a-car time with Angel and Spike was not what she needed before they found that amulet.

Buffy tapped the face of the stone in her hand, thinking for a long moment. She'd tried actually opening a hole, like she'd done accidentally when she'd ended up in the Nightmare-Sunnydale, but the amulet hadn't even responded, let alone done what she wanted it to. Of course, she'd also still been searching side-by-side with Spike and Angel at the time, and that had limited what she'd been able to concentrate well enough to do.

Sure, she'd _told_ them the amulet was magicky and that she could use it, and _technically_ Angel had _seen_ her use it—though he'd been mostly out of his mind at the time, so she supposed it didn't really count—but showing and telling were totally different games. And, okay, she hadn't wanted an audience in case this totally flopped—or blew up in her face.

After glancing over her shoulder for a quick check, in case either had come closer, Buffy focused on the amulet in her palm, trying to get it to do something. "Come on," she muttered. "Find your partner." She touched the surface of the stone again when it didn't respond. Not really all that surprising. It had been at least a week since she'd tried to do anything with the amulet, and it wasn't exactly a skill she'd had any sort of mastery over in the first place.

"Magic is so not my thing," she muttered. "Come onnn. Work."

After another moment, the amulet grew warm in her palm. Just warm, without any sort of light in the stone to suggest it might actually be doing something. It was active, though, and that was progress—was she expected to train with the amulet regularly to keep this up, instead of just expecting it to do what she wanted it to do, whenever she needed it to do something?

When the amulet didn't go cold, Buffy resumed walking, jumping over a rock in her path. The amulet lit up once, bright blue, when both her feet had touched back down on the ground.

"What was that?" Angel called. "Buffy?"

She waved her hand at him to shut him up, trying to keep her attention on the amulet now that it had actually _done_ something. The stone pulsed again, and then once more in the time it took for Angel and Spike to walk over to her. Curious, Buffy pushed at the stone she'd jumped over with one foot, moving it out of the way. There was nothing underneath but more dirt.

"What's that all about, then?" Spike asked. The amulet flared again.

"The time between it lighting up is fairly even," Angel said, watching. "I think that—"

"It's playing hot and cold with us, like a little kid," Buffy said, catching on after two more flashes. "It just started here, so if I go this way…" she started walking straight again, away from them, aware on the edge of her focus that they were following her.

Angel touched her arm. "Buffy?"

"The blinking's more frequent, I think. This must be the right direction," she said, briefly showing him the face of the amulet as she peered around, looking for any sort of hole.

"I just hope this is all there is to it," Angel said, sounding grim. "If it isn't, we might have more of a problem."

"Your optimism is contagious," Buffy replied.

Spike snorted. "Well, whatever we run into, it looks like that thing'll have it covered." He kicked a couple of rocks. "And if it doesn't, then we can get out of here and back to the city. Like other people would have done an hour ago."

"If you were just going to complain, you shouldn't have tagged along," Angel said.

Buffy ignored them—again—and continued walking forward. Another twenty feet and the amulet started blinking rapidly, like a spazzy Christmas bulb or particularly annoying turn indicator.

"If you two are done fighting, I think our elusive cave entrance is around here somewhere."

She took a couple more steps and the amulet started up a steady, dimmer glow, like it could relax now that they were where they were supposed to be. The section of ground under Buffy's feet, though, was flat, and there was no entrance to the ground that she could see.

"Caved in," Angel growled. "Dammit!" He kicked at the ground, the toe of his shoe catching a stone and sending it hurtling from the circles of light cast by the amulet and her flashlight.

"Relax," Buffy said, studying the ground. Maybe they were standing _over_ the cave and the entrance was nearby. And Angel just couldn't be rational about it because he'd been aggravated and on edge since Nina had been mentioned in the car.

It had made for a very long drive.

"We'll figure this out," Buffy said. She stretched and sat down on the nearest boulder. The amulet still glowed softly. "Maybe there's something we're missing."

"Of course there's something we're missing," Angel said. "If there wasn't, we—"

"Hey! Got something over here!" Spike shouted. The beam of Buffy's flashlight found him in time for her and Angel to watch him plummet from sight with a shout, the ground swallowing him.

"Spike!" Buffy hopped back to her feet and scrambled to where he'd disappeared, managing to skid to a stop in time to avoid tumbling down the hole herself. Shining the light downward, she could just see the glint of the top of Spike's head. "You okay?"

"Of course he's okay," Angel said. "He didn't fall that far."

She looked up at him, expression disapproving. God, he was like a little kid. "Think this is it?"

"Probably," Angel said. He sounded disgruntled.

"We're coming down, Spike!" she called into the hole. Mindful that it might crumble beneath her, Buffy sat on the ledge, legs dangling, and watched him back up before she clicked the flashlight off and tucked it into her waistband.

"Maybe I should go first."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "See you in a minute," she said, and pushed off. She fell, grunting when her feet hit the cave's floor. The amulet went out as soon as she touched down, leaving it far too dark to see anything, and her body hummed with her senses going overboard to compensate; air moving a bit coming down the hole, and a presence—Spike—off to her left.

"Kinda far down, huh?" Spike commented. She moved toward him, getting out of the way just in time for Angel to land.

"Anyone spared a moment to figure out how we're going to get back _out_ of here?" the older vampire growled.

"Worry about it later," Buffy said. She enjoyed the feeling of them standing near her in the dark for a moment before grabbing the flashlight and turning it back on. "I bet that'll be the easy part." She shone the flashlight across the walls.

"Torch," Angel said, pointing at a bracket near them. "Probably good for us to have more than one light source." He pulled it down and held it out, tip pointing toward Spike.

"What?" Spike asked. "What're you pointing that at me for?"

An exasperated noise from Angel. "Your lighter, Spike. The torch isn't going to light itself."

"Oh. Right." Spike's coat rustled as he dug through his pockets and fished out the lighter, muttering something sounding distinctly like, 'Light _you_ on fire.'

Angel ignored him. He held the torch above them, waving it back and forth once to get a good look at the nooks and crannies around them.

The cavern only gave them one way to walk. It looked like there may have been a path in the opposite direction in the past, but it had since caved in. It had probably gone up, maybe been the route back to the surface. The path they _could_ take sloped downward, into the earth and further under the crater.

"Kind of suspicious, a bracket with an already oiled torch in a cave in a totally abandoned area of the state," Spike commented.

"None of us think it was coincidental," Angel muttered. "Come on, let's go."

Since she had the flashlight, Buffy started forward, holding it in one hand and pulling out a stake with the other. The stake she held at the ready as she shone the flashlight around the first bend in the cave.

"Nothing there," Spike said. "We'd smell 'em. You're okay, love."

Buffy let her arm drop slightly and glared at them over her shoulder. "Let's hear it for vampire backseat driving," she said, and stepped around the corner.

The flashlight went out and Buffy swore. She clicked the button on it a few times, hitting both the head and handle, trying to get it working again.

Nothing, even though the batteries and bulb had been fine.

"You have to be kidding me," Buffy said, looking around. Angel stepped forward, holding the torch up. The three of them peered at the walls and floor to see if there was some sort of trigger that could have caused the electricity to fail. "Typical," Buffy muttered.

"I'll lead," Angel said, squeezing around her in the narrow passage. Buffy stopped him with a hand on his arm, the other propped on her hip.

"Give me the torch, Angel. This is still my job, the two of you are just along for the ride."

Spike snickered at the long-suffering noise Angel made when he turned back to face her.

"Does it really matter?" he asked.

"Kinda really does," she said. She took the torch from him when he held it out to her, ignoring the hard look in his eye, and scooted around him so that she was leading again.

"This'll go so much easier on you if you stop trying to be her bodyguard, mate," Spike said. She couldn't help but agree, even if he had a stupid look on his face, like he was enjoying every moment she and Angel didn't get along. And really, he probably was.

Angel made a noise in his throat and Buffy met his eyes for a moment, catching sight of emotions crashing against each other in them before he looked away and indicated with a nod that they should continue moving. Was she being totally self-centred if she assumed what she'd caught glimpse of was all to do with her?

Maybe. Regardless, she and Angel really needed to sit down and have a talk—a talk that didn't end in them giving in to the hormones and the smoochies.

Her attention returned to the task at hand and she spun back to face the way they were headed when she realised she'd been staring at his lips, since he'd been so carefully not meeting her eyes. They needed to find Fake Angel's amulet. Further down into the damp, gross cavern with all the water leaking from the walls it was.

* * *

><p><em>Sorry for the delay, guys! I got this back late from one of my betas and life is crazy so I had to put off actually going through and reviewing it. Next chapter will also be a two-week delay since I have almost no time to write right now, but eventually I plan to get enough of a buffer to work back up to once a week postings. :)<em>


	31. Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty-One

"We're still going downward," Angel said after a long stretch of silence. Totally stoic, with no indication whatsoever of anything that might have passed between them in that look—positive or negative. Probably better all 'round. "From the sound of it, we're going to hit water soon."

Buffy made a noise of agreement. The rushing sound of water bounced up from somewhere below them, further down the tunnel. It had been getting steadily louder for a while, but they hadn't come across anything other than little rivulets along the walls. "We'll deal with it when it happens. Just keep walking." She wanted absolutely nothing more than to get what they came for and get out of here.

"No, get down!" Spike shouted.

Buffy hit the ground, her chin skinning against the floor. Angel curled half on top of her and half around her with one of his arms holding her waist. He'd pushed her at the same time she'd dropped, pulling her to the floor with way more weight than she ever could have managed on her own. The unexpected 'help' had cost her skin. Ow.

Spike crawled over as something went whizzing above their heads. "Something's attacking us."

Angel's grip on her waist slackened and Buffy pulled herself out from underneath him, peering back through the dark to try and see where the attack had come from. She spared a glare for Spike and his unnecessary comment.

She sat up, slowly, when nothing went speeding past their heads again. Angel followed, lifting up the torch so they could see better.

"Everyone okay?" she asked.

"Not really," Spike said. He sat, contorted a bit, giving an irritated look to the arrow sticking out from his shoulder. "Got me on the way down."

"At least it was on the right," Buffy said. She stood, crouching a bit in case the motion triggered anything, and made her way behind him.

"She says, notably not the one with an arrow sticking out of her back!"

Rolling her eyes, Buffy pulled the fabric taut around the arrow, squinting to try and make out details of the wound in the dark. It didn't look so bad, but she knew from experience that it hurt like hell. Then again, it was possible Spike had been impaled often enough to be less affected by the pain.

"We'd be in a lot more trouble if Buffy had been hit," Angel said. Then, "Just pull it out. He'll survive."

Wrapping her hand around the wooden shaft, Buffy yanked the arrow out.

"Ow! Be gentle!" Spike shouted. "That thing was barbed!"

She looked at the bloody arrowhead. The piece of flesh that had come out, attached to the barbs, disintegrated as she watched. "That can't be good," Buffy said. "You feeling okay?"

Spike appeared to be taking stock of all of his limbs. Rolling the injured shoulder, he nodded. "Seem to be fine. Thanks for asking, love."

Buffy continued watching him for a moment, worried, entertaining the thought that the arrow might've been poisoned. When Spike didn't collapse, she nodded. "Okay. Let's keep going, then."

"You walk between us," Angel said to her. "I'll lead."

Temper flaring, Buffy's jaw dropped open as she searched for the words to tell him off. _Her._ Mission!

"Hate to say it, but I agree with him, pet," Spike said. "Better one of us gets hit than you. We heal faster."

"You do not," Buffy muttered, recalling how long it had taken her to recover when she'd been wounded as a vampire. Then again, Angel and Spike actually fed regularly, and she most definitely hadn't done the same. Still, it wasn't like they were in the Temple of Doom or something.

"Two against one, then," Spike said. "And before you argue with that, how about we just get on with it so we can get out of here?" he suggested.

Buffy scowled at the both of them. "Let's just go," she said, hating how willing she was to just give in.

Looking satisfied, Angel began leading the way through the tunnel.

-8-

Buffy figured it was another half hour before they came to the dead end. Holding the torch close to the sheer rock, Angel peered closely at it.

"No cracks," he said. "But it's... weird."

Buffy looked around, back the way they came, side-to-side, and even upward to see if maybe there was some skyward exit they were missing. Nothing. There hadn't even been any forks on the way down here where they might have taken a wrong turn.

"Weird how?" Spike asked. "It's a dead end in a cave underground. A dead end that we already knew was here."

"Where's the water?" Angel asked.

Both Buffy and Spike looked around. Angel had a point. They'd seen tons of water on their way down here, trickling down the walls and along the floor; the hems of Buffy's pants were soaked and starting to get heavy, front of her shirt dirty and still a bit damp in spots from when she'd fallen. They'd been walking steadily downward the whole trip. Shouldn't the water be pooling here, then, if this was where the cavern ended?

"You think this is that wall?" Buffy asked. "The one that was weird between the two charts?"

"Yeah," Angel said. He put his hand up against it. "It's not jagged, either. This isn't natural."

Buffy looked it over again quickly at that. She hadn't noticed (and by the expression on his face, neither had Spike) but the wall they were looking at was definitely a lot smoother than anything they'd seen down here yet. "You'd think whoever made up those charts would've noticed that," Buffy commented.

"No reason for him to think it was anything but natural," Angel said, from where he was crouched down near the base of the wall. "The water should be pooling here, but..."

"But, Sunnydale," Buffy said. Angel nodded.

"Still useless for us, unless one of you brought dynamite," Spike said. Angel looked at her.

"What?" she asked. "I'm good at hiding weapons in my clothes. I'm not _that_ good."

Angel shook his head. "The amulet. It hasn't done anything since we got in here, but maybe it's the key to this."

Buffy looked down at it, aware that the other two were staring at it as well. The light from Angel's torch made the face of the diamond sparkle, but it definitely wasn't glowing. It wasn't even warm, for that matter, like it needed to be if any magic at all was going to come off of it. "Right," Buffy said, tone doubtful. _More_ magic? Maybe she should dye her hair red and change her name.

Angel held out his hand. "Can I see it?" he sounded wary. She couldn't see why. Had she been that weird about keeping the amulet to herself? …Okay, yes. Maybe she kind of had.

She unhooked it and handed it to him. Angel took it, weighing it in his hand a moment, and then held the face of it up against the wall, clearly expecting it would react somehow. Buffy had to hold back the temptation to laugh at him.

Looking disappointed when neither the wall nor the amulet reacted, Angel handed it back to her.

"What did you really expect that would do?" Spike asked, snickering. Angel scowled at him.

"Better than standing around staring at the wall and just hoping it'll disappear."

Buffy put the chain back around her neck and stepped forward. "Let me try," she said. Both Spike and Angel shot her doubtful looks. "What?"

"No offence, Buffy, but if any of us are going to be able to work the magics involved in this... well, it's unlikely to be you," Angel said.

Thought so, did he?

"Slayer thing. Which of us here is a Slayer, again? I know what I'm doing, Angel. I got us in here, I can get us past this part."

Angel raised his hands in surrender and stepped out of her way.

Feeling them staring at her, Buffy looked at the wall. She remembered Fake Angel doing something weird with his amulet whenever he'd opened the door to the Time Chamber back in the Powers dimension. This had to work similarly, if the amulet had anything to do with getting past this point at all. Only problem was, Fake Angel had never taught her how to get into the Time Chamber on her own. He'd always been there to do it for her—at least as far as she could remember.

Feeling like a bit of an idiot, Buffy put her hand against the wall. Magic didn't immediately start to spread from her hand like it always had with Fake Angel, making this whole situation even worse.

"What're you trying to do, pet?" Spike asked.

Oh, and her audience did _not _make this easier in the least.

She shushed him, furrowing her brow in concentration. The amulet pulsed once, almost instantly growing warm when she activated it—hey, she was getting better at this!—but still, there was no magic actually flowing anywhere.

Buffy let out a long breath, trying to ignore Spike and Angel entirely. It wasn't really that they were doing anything except standing there, but even that was more than a little distraction-worthy, given who they were, and that they doubted she could do this. And hey, what was with all the Buffy's-totally-incapable vibes?

She knew that she could do this. It was just a matter of teaching herself how. On the fly.

"Come on," she muttered, only half aware that she was speaking aloud. Buffy clenched her eyes shut, trying to envision the blue light going from the amulet to the wall, through her arm. Amulet, arm, wall. Amulet, arm, wall. She started to feel a little bit floaty, like she wasn't entirely standing on the ground anymore, or at least wasn't being as affected by gravity as normal.

Amulet. Arm. Wall.

"Whoa!" Spike's shout was faint through the rushing in her ears.

Amulet. Arm. Wall.

A hand wrapped around Buffy's outstretched wrist.

"Don't!" she exclaimed, not recognising her own voice. The hand fell away, but not before Buffy lost her concentration. Her eyes flew open and she looked at the wall in front of her.

Instead of being sheer rock, it had turned into some weird, translucent blue substance. Shimmering and moving a bit, it definitely wasn't stone anymore, but it was kind of hard to tell what it had become. Buffy glared back and forth between Spike and Angel.

"Who distracted me?" she demanded.

Angel looked a bit sheepish, though there was something else—worry?—in his expression. "I didn't—I'm sorry, Buffy, but we didn't know what was happening."

"I was almost there," Buffy said, indicating the wall.

"You were glowing. You didn't sound like yourself. I thought maybe something had possessed you," Angel said. He didn't sound apologetic in the least.

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Glowing?" _Glowing?_ That was new. She'd never glowed before. Fake Angel had never _glowed._

"Glowing," Spike said. "Your hair was turning green."

"Well that's... interesting," Buffy muttered. "What do you mean I didn't sound like myself? I didn't say anything until you grabbed me."

The confused looks they gave her were identical. "You were chanting," Angel said after a minute. "You _were_ possessed." His gaze darted to the amulet, and for a moment Buffy was convinced he was going to reach out and pull it off of her. His hand fisted, confirming he'd had the same thought.

"I wasn't possessed," she said with a shake of her head. "I was..." she trailed off. _Had_ she been possessed? It made for a more reasonable explanation than 'I don't know what happened but at some point I probably learned how to use this thing properly and just don't remember because the PTB are jerks.'

"Whatever happened, I almost got through. Let me finish," Buffy said, indicating the wall. "I know what I'm doing.

"How can you be comfortable with this?" Angel asked. Buffy, who had been ready to argue because she'd been convinced his next words would be a resounding 'no,' found herself forced to think about that for a moment.

She still felt like herself, but_ was_ she still herself? She'd once rejected the 'help' of the Shadow Men because the strength they offered would make her less human. What was she now, though? Had Fake Angel and the Powers done something irreversible to her that she'd been left totally in the dark about? That would certainly explain all of the weird writing on her back.

She met Spike's eyes, the look he gave her telling her he was thinking along the same lines. He didn't take the moment to blurt out her secret to Angel, though. Maybe he realised as well as she did that this really wasn't the best time for it.

"I haven't been thinking all that hard about it, Angel," she said, and pressed her hand to the wall again, finding it solid despite all appearance to the contrary. The magic started flowing again almost immediately, Buffy staying conscious enough of what was going on to know that she hadn't started any sort of chanting this time. She kept her eyes open, too. No need to provoke the mysterious power in the amulet.

The wall began to melt away as they watched, stone becoming consumed by the magic flowing through it and sliding down itself, into the water and the rock of the cave floor. Buffy let her hand drop when she couldn't feel anything beneath her fingers any longer.

"Maybe you should be thinking a bit harder about it, then," Angel said.

She gave him a long look. Maybe she should. She should, in fact, probably be feeling some sort of righteous anger toward Fake Angel and the Powers right now—especially Fake Angel, since he'd more than likely known exactly what was going on. She was tired, though. So, so tired, and why should she worry about what had happened now if she didn't have any control over it, or hope of changing it?

Besides. How could she go wrong with more superpowers?

She probably didn't want the answer to that.


	32. Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

Buffy didn't fail to notice the looks Spike and Angel kept directing at her as they made their way past the barrier and further into the cavern. She managed to ignore them, though. Partially, probably, because she was waaay too focused on how different the cavern looked now that they were beyond the charted part of it.

They were definitely still in a cave, and the mystery of why the water hadn't been pooling at the wall was resolved, too. Small depressions ran along the tunnel, an actual stream running along through it as though fed by something other than the natural groundwater from before—a spring or something.

The rock surrounding them was different, too. A bit sparkly, like there was something more precious—or maybe more magical—in it than there had been in the upper passageway. It reminded her, in some odd way, of the initial testing room in the Powers dimension. The one she'd had to escape from even before she'd met Fake Angel. Reminded her too much of it, really.

She wished she could figure out why. Well. Beyond the being-sent-here-by-the-Powers thing.

"I don't like this," Angel said.

Spike snorted. "Like the rest of us do?"

"If this is supposed to be a setup by the Powers, if this amulet has anything to do with them at all, then why were we attacked on the way down here?" Angel asked. Buffy could see him taking in their surroundings; once in a while, he'd hold the torch higher to peer at something that caught his eye in the ceiling, or up on the wall. She couldn't imagine what he thought he was looking at. All _she_ saw, reminder of the Powers dimension or not, was sparkly rock.

"Uhh. _Maybe_, so that no random idiot off the street could wander in and grab the trinket?" Spike suggested.

"If Buffy's amulet has something to do with all of this, shouldn't its presence have stopped the attacks?"

"Intelligent booby traps?" Buffy asked, doubtful. Angel looked at her as if to say, 'Why not?' Or maybe to ask why she was taking Spike's side instead of his.

"I just think we need to take more care than we have been," Angel said. "Charging in like this isn't well thought out, and it's not safe and… what is wrong with you?"

Spike had one hand reaching over his shoulder, a grimace on his face. "You don't have a hole in your back, so back off, mate."

Angel pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closing briefly as he sighed. "You said you were fine."

"Was. Am. Just got a sore shoulder, is all."

Buffy gave him a worried look, mind starting to race. Any number of things could have been on that arrow tip. Any number of things could have caused his skin to dissolve before her eyes. And, okay, first thought—poison. Slow acting poison, apparently, at least compared to most she'd seen. Or maybe it was just a low dosage, enough to maim a human but not to kill, and therefore only enough to really irritate a vampire, but what did she know and—oh wow was she rambling.

"Let me see," she said. Calm, calm. No crisis to see here. She wasn't at all starting to freak out for absolutely no reason. Buffy made to move behind him, but Spike shook his head and pulled away.

"Like I said, I'm fine. Angel's right, pet. We need to keep moving."

It was hard to tell in this light, but she thought there might have been an unhealthy glaze to his eyes. Aware that dawn was approaching and they really ought to get out of here before then, Buffy shook her head.

"You're not okay. It's some sort of poison, or something. You're not okay."

"Get back to the car, Spike," Angel said. She and Spike both looked at him, Spike's expression sour.

"No," he said, face screwed up in disbelief. "Like I'm leaving the two of you to wander in a dark cave all by yourselves. You think I don't _know_ that you won't get anything done?"

"_Hey!_ Totally uncalled for," Buffy said, glaring at him. "And if that wasn't the poison talking..."

The smirk Spike turned on her looked a bit forced. "Regardless, not getting rid of me that easily. I'll survive. Quicker we get moving again, quicker we get out of here."

Buffy gave him a long look. He was right, of course—if they hadn't been stopping to fight with each other every ten minutes, they would have found the amulet by now. Maybe even would've been out of here altogether.

"No. You're just going to slow us down."

"Angel, leave it. He's right, we don't have time. If he thinks he's okay, then we'll just…" Buffy shook her head. "Leave it."

"There's blood in the trunk and the windows are—"

"_Leave it._"

Angel looked back and forth between her and Spike, mouth open slightly like he was going to say something. He shook his head after a moment, apparently deciding it was something he would regret saying, and gestured at the tunnel. "Don't slow us down."

Spike made a face at him, lips moving in mocking repetition. He still looked ill, though, as he jammed his hand in his pockets and spun on his heel before striding forward with (to Buffy eye's) totally unnecessary bravado.

"Keep up, kids," he called back.

Buffy watched him for a moment with her lips pressed together. He _seemed_ okay, and he was certainly acting like he was. Short of knocking him out and dragging him back to the car, there was little they could actually do to force him to listen to them if he didn't want to. And if nothing else, Spike was a survivor. If he thought he was actually in any danger, he'd be hightailing it back to the car.

Probably.

Buffy stepped forward, following him with Angel walking beside her. She studied the unchanging texture of the tunnel walls, then wrinkled her nose at a whiff of something weird in the damp, stale air.

"Do either of you smell something funny?" she asked, glancing around, knowing she must look ridiculous with her nose all scrunched up like it was. "Like blood but… not."

Both vampires looked at her, Spike walking backward, his scarred eyebrow raised. He tipped his head upward a bit, making a motion of sniffing before he shook his head.

"Nothing smells like blood, Buffy," Angel said. "We'd've noticed long before you if something did."

"Not _exactly_ like blood. Just… _kinda_ like blood. Blood-like, not bloody. Err…" she trailed off and shook her head. "Fine, okay, super sense of smell, but I swear that…" She sniffed at the air again, but couldn't tell if the smell was actually still around or the memory of it was just lingering.

"I only smell cave, pet. Maybe you—"

Spike vanished.

For a moment, Buffy could only blink, finding her thoughts altogether halted by the way he'd simply disappeared from sight. She recovered enough to look down at the cave floor, not comprehending when she couldn't see the hole he'd fallen through. There had to be a hole, didn't there? Maybe if she got a little closer…

Her motion forward snagged and Buffy snapped back to attention with enough time to stop herself from slugging Angel for holding onto her elbow.

"Slowly," Angel said before she could say anything. He relaxed his grip, dropping his hand so that only his fingertips still brushed her sleeve. "It may only be an illusion, or it might've been magic. Either way, just… Slowly."

An illusion. Or magic. Sure. She could buy that. That made the most sense, anyway. An illusion. So the next five feet or so—that was all he'd been in front of them, right?—of the tunnel was real, and then there was some sort of reflecty thing or something, and Spike was actually on the other side of it and not disappeared at all.

There wasn't any reason for her to have frozen up like she did. Maybe the cave had gotten to her. But maybe the poison had had some magical component, and it had caused Spike to just vanish, and there was no way they could reverse that, and…

_'Breathe, Buffy,' _she thought, forcing her imagination to stop dragging her down this path.

"Okay. Let's go," Buffy said, studying the tunnel ahead of them. She caught Angel's nod out of the corner of her eye and, letting him keep his fingers brushing at her elbow, they stepped forward.

They were a good ten feet past where Spike had disappeared when Buffy stopped and looked around again. Still no sign of Spike.

"This is all wrong. Where is he?"

Angel hesitated. "I don't know." He'd sounded about to say something else, though, and Buffy peered up at him, her eyes narrowed. Hiding something. He was always hiding something, and it was starting to drive her crazy. Er. Crazier.

"What do you know?" He wouldn't meet her eyes, instead preferring to stare at who-knew-what somewhere behind her. "Wall isn't that interesting, Angel."

"I don't smell him," he said finally. "He's not here anymore."

She'd suspected as much, and nodded. Whatever the hell else this tunnel was, it was definitely booby-trapped enough for _yet another_ thing to have happened. Falling down a hole to get here, poison arrows, a member of their party disappearing entirely…

"Do you find it strange that Spike has been the only victim so far?"

"No, and don't jinx it," Angel said. He started walking forward again.

"What do you mean, 'no'? There are three of us and—"

"And of the three of us, Spike is the most brash."

"So?"

He stopped and looked at her. "So, he's the one who goes rushing in without paying attention to what's going on around him, or worrying about where he's placing his feet.

"Regardless, he's not the only one who's been affected by something in here. We still don't know why you started glowing while you where taking that barrier down, and we're not going to be able to find _that_ out until we get what we came here for and get out and have Wesley look it up."

He was really hung up on that whole glowing thing.

"We need to find him. I know why we're here and I know what our priorities are supposed to be, but finding him just jumped up to number one on the important scale."

"I'm not disagreeing with you."

Oh. Right. Still…

"But. There's a but."

"There's a but," he agreed. "I'm not disagreeing, but there's only one direction for us to go in—the way we're already moving. We're either going to find Spike or we're not. And yes—" he held up a hand when her jaw clenched, protest on her tongue because he certainly didn't _sound_ like his priorities were the same as hers "—we _will_ need to find him, but my focus is on that amulet."

Well, his number one priority could be whatever he wanted it to be. _Her_ focus had stuck on Spike and, as they moved forward, she found herself looking hopefully around every bend for him.

No such luck, though. How could he have just disappeared?

* * *

><p><em>Hurray, sporadic updates! I'm working on writing this at a very plodding pace, but hopefully someday in the coming months I'll be able to start regular updates back up again. 'Til then, I'll get out what I can, when I can. :)<em>


	33. Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Angel made an uncomfortable noise, drawing Buffy's attention up to him. One of her eyebrows slid up a little. There had been quiet between them for a while, each on the lookout for anything else that might attack or jump out at them, neither moving very far from the other in case the cavern decided what remained of their little party needed to be splintered off. Frankly, it surprised her that Angel was the one breaking that silence, though she really wasn't feeling like Miss Talkative herself.

"I wanted to…" he looked pained as he trailed off, and a frustrated expression crossed his face for a moment before he tried again. "About Nina…"

Oh, boy. This sounded fun already.

"In the car, that was me joking. Promise. I don't need to meet her." Wanted to, yes. Needed to? No. Thought it might end in disaster for everyone involved if it did? Not even a question.

He nodded, expression distant and not giving much away. He seemed more confused than anything, knowing he'd gotten himself into a bad spot and maybe not quite sure how to handle it now. The whole thing amused Buffy, now that she'd adjusted to it. Bothered her, too, sure—if she was being really honest with herself, anyway—but amused her, nonetheless.

"That's probably the best way to—Not that I don't want you meet her. I do. I'd never thought about it before, but I do. I just don't… I can't think of the best way to—"

Buffy laughed. Soft, and with her hand covering her smirk, but it was still a laugh, and enough to cut Angel off altogether. He stared at her for a moment, a deer in the headlights look to his gaze, before he looked pointedly away.

"This isn't easy!"

Her laughter may have provoked the outburst, but his anger didn't seem directed at her. Angel being Angel; beating himself up over something he didn't have any control over. Well, mostly didn't have control over, in this case. If he hadn't kissed her, they'd be looking for Spike right now instead of having this conversation.

"So, don't do it," she said. "Save your apology, or explanation, or whatever, for Nina, Angel. I don't need it."

His silence gave her pause.

"You've got absolutely no intention of telling her."

"It's not very high on my to-do list, no."

She couldn't blame him, and why was she so keen on him telling Nina, anyway? It's not like she needed to be cast in the role of boyfriend-stealing bitch. Not that she had any intention of stealing Angel. Things just _happened_ between them. A lot. Even when they knew better.

Okay, maybe it was being the other woman that felt weird. Really, really weird. But nothing else was going to happen between her and Angel, because, one: they'd gotten it out of their systems and two: _he _had a girlfriend.

"Do you _want_ to meet her?" Angel asked.

"Of course I do. I'm curious."

"I'll arrange it, then. Coffee."

"'Cause that wouldn't be a thousand layers of awkward. I want to _meet_ her, Angel. Not tag along on a date."

He looked away again, trying to hide the gesture by feigning interest in the narrowing of the tunnel ahead of them. Buffy crossed her arms, willing enough to wait for him to continue the conversation. There wasn't much more to say, on her part.

"We're going to have to walk single file through here, it's narrow."

She blinked, bewildered for a moment at the change in topic, then nodded and slipped past him when he stood off to one side to let her go first. Angel held the torch up, the flickering flame casting a vaguely Buffy-shaped shadow to precede her through the tunnel.

When they'd gone another twenty feet and scenery didn't change again, Angel said, "I'm trying to include you." His tone suggested it was some big favour, or maybe code for something else.

"I'm here working, remember? I don't need to join your little lawyer club, and I'm also not really sure I want to."

The footfalls behind her stopped and Buffy turned to find him glowering down at her, the unsteady lighting casting deep shadows on his face, harshening his expression.

"What is _wrong_ with you? I'm _trying_ here, Buffy. I'm really trying, and every time I do all I get from you is hostility."

What was wrong with_ her?_

"Trying _what?_" What the hell was he on about? "All I can see you doing is trying to get me to… to… I don't know, approve or disapprove of your girlfriend, or your actions, or something. You've never needed my approval before—never _cared_ what I thought about your actions before."

"That's not true. You know that isn't true."

Buffy threw up her hands. "I don't care if you're dating somebody. Good for you. Can we get back to what we're here for? Fetching the amulet and finding Spike?"

Angel gave her a long look. She clearly hadn't given him the reaction he was looking for. If he wanted her to shriek about… well, whatever he wanted her to shriek about, then he was going to be disappointed.

"Fine," he said, not sounding happy about it.

They made the remainder of the walk in silence.

-8-

The tunnel opened out into a circular chamber. The whole room seemed to glow with, or be lit by, some indiscernible light source—the light came from everywhere and nowhere, dispersing outward. It was brightest in the centre, where a white pillar spiralled impossibly high up, into a glare of light that hid the top of it from sight.

Senses on high alert, Buffy took a few steps into the room, feeling more than seeing Angel tense up as he followed. This was it. It had to be. After walking who-knew-how-many miles underground, they'd finally—finally!—reached their destination.

Not detecting anything to give her further pause, Buffy crossed to the centre of the room. There was a shallow alcove carved out neatly in the pillar, and as she got closer she was able to make out something hanging on a peg within it.

The necklace was heavy looking, dark, and familiar. Stone black as pitch, it glinted in the cavern's bizarre glow, suggesting an actual source for the light somewhere above her head, if she cared to look. Fake Angel's amulet and what they'd come for, no doubt about it.

Was it too simple, though? Okay, sure—they'd had to drive all the way out to Sunnydale, find the cave entrance and hike through it. They'd lost Spike along the way and still hadn't come across him, or anywhere else to look for him, for that matter. For the amulet to just be hanging here, though… She'd expected at least a fight for it, or something.

"Wait," Angel called from behind her. Buffy paused, hand outstretched to pull the amulet down from its peg. "We aren't alone."

She dropped her hand and turned back to Angel, finding his attention directed off to her left. Following his gaze showed her nothing but empty space.

"Did you see something?" she asked.

Angel hesitated. "I thought I did, but…"

"Spike, maybe?" She took a few steps in the direction he was looking. The chamber didn't _look_ capable of hiding anything, but that didn't mean it wasn't. Anything connected to the Powers was bound to have loads of secrets.

"No," Angel said. "Not Spike." He'd crossed to stand beside her, and wore an unsure expression as he continued to survey the far end of the room. Buffy saw nothing but dark, hewn cave walls, but she trusted Angel's instincts—she just wished hers were detecting the same thing.

"Then what else is down here with us?" Buffy asked, though she really didn't want the answer. Angel shook his head and handed her the torch.

"I don't smell anything," Angel said. "But that doesn't mean there's nothing there." He started toward the far end of the room. Buffy set the torch down against the pillar, watching the flame for a moment to make sure it wasn't going to go out, and then followed.

"You found it."

Confused, Buffy glanced up at Angel, finding him frozen in his tracks and not looking at her. A frown creasing her features, Buffy scanned the room quickly; finding the speaker standing behind them, back where they'd first come in at the entrance to the tunnel beyond the chamber.

_'You have to get it from me,_' he'd said. It made sense, then, that the Avatar would be here in the flesh.

"We found it," Buffy agreed.

"Buffy?" Angel said quietly. She glanced over to see him carefully studying the Avatar, his brow furrowed and expression unsure. She could relate. She knew how weird it felt being in the same room with, and talking to, something that looked and moved like you. At least Angel's doppelganger wasn't evil.

"You remember that long story about my only-partly-missing memory that I totally glossed over? This is part of it."

"What is _this?_"

Buffy took a deep breath, trying to condense everything rushing through her head into the most concise explanation possible. There wasn't one. If there were, she would've given it ages ago, when she'd first gotten here. Maybe she could at least save face by controlling the conversation enough that Angel didn't think she'd been hiding too much of importance.

Not that it was any of his business if she had been.

"I'm an Avatar for the Powers that Be," Fake Angel said.

Angel gave the other man a more critical survey. Angel had a lot more experience with the Powers than she did—she couldn't imagine what was going through his head right now. "You're the reason Buffy's here," he said after a moment.

Buffy blinked. He caught on fast.

"I'm the agent that sent her here, yes," Fake Angel said. "But I was only—"

"Following orders," Buffy interrupted. "Are you here now for any reason other than to be Mr Opaque Guy with the orders and the lack of explanation? Because we're—_I'm_—still trying to get through the old stuff and really don't need anything new."

When Fake Angel's expression turned apologetic, it struck Buffy just how transparent he was—at least emotionally—compared to the real Angel. This was _weird_, and more than a little uncomfortable.

"You're wondering about the inscription."

It took Buffy a moment to figure out what he was talking about. The scarring on her back. Right. She hadn't actually been referring to it, at least not directly, but she'd take it.

"I've been calling it something closer to mutilation, but sure, we can use your word."

"Buffy, what's going on?" Angel asked, sounding the slightest bit anxious. "What is he talking about?"

Buffy held her hand up, palm open toward him. She could _not_ handle dealing with them both at once, especially not now. Not when she needed to concentrate on finding Spike. They'd found the amulet, they were supposed to be finding Spike and getting out of here and back to LA.

And, okay, she'd more than half-expected they would run into Fake Angel down here, but it happening didn't make her any more willing to deal with him. Instead, all of the angry thoughts she'd had since waking up at Wolfram and Hart—especially those concerning the holes in her memory and her being stuck here, unable to go home and not really knowing why—were lining up in her head, ready to be hurled one after the other at the Avatar.

Telling him off would be a waste of time. As much as Fake Angel had seemed to care about her and what was going on in her head, she knew that the Powers didn't share the sentiment.

Damn. When had she become so complacent about being someone's tool?

Buffy took a long breath in through her nose, the damp, still odd scent of the cave causing her to wrinkle it to chase away the temptation to sneeze. If magic had a smell, this had to be it.

"I'm here to explain." Fake Angel paused. "At least what the words mean, if not your final destination."

She folded her arms over her chest. "An explanation would be a good start. Then you can tell me what this second amulet's supposed to do and why Angel needs it, _and then_—" she glared at him when he opened his mouth to cut across her "—we're going to discuss whatever you know about the end of this job I'm doing for you."

Angel—the real one—was standing really close to her again, and she'd more than reached her limit for the amount of overprotective crap she could take.

"Get the amulet."

Angel hesitated, not budging at all until she glared up at him. "My quest, my lead," she reminded him. Another moment passed before he finally nodded and stepped away from them, glancing back over his shoulder a couple of times as he went.

Satisfied they might actually get somewhere tonight, Buffy spun her attention back to Fake Angel.

"Talk to me."


	34. Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty-Four

Fake Angel's gaze stayed on Angel for a long time, apparently incredibly interested in the man he resembled. Also, apparently incredibly uninterested in coming up with any response for Buffy's demands, since he didn't seem inclined to open his mouth.

Buffy cleared her throat. Still standing with her arms crossed, glaring at him, hoping she looked as stubborn and unwilling to go in any direction but her own as she felt. Hoping, too, that the weariness starting to rise inside her whenever she had to break through another wall just to get a little information wasn't on display.

Fake Angel's study of actual-Angel finally ended, his gaze shifting to turn the look on her instead.

"How much of the spell do you remember? I know that the power overwhelmed you, but—"

Buffy kept the hand she'd cut him off with held out, expression daring him to interrupt her. "Amulet. Angel. There's an order I want you to talk to me in, and you're going to play nice."

He didn't like her telling him what to do. Probably liked it even less than the real Angel did, and without the practice at hiding it. Too bad.

"It's the partner to the Kostheshr Hekmon," the name rolled off of his tongue, and it struck Buffy that she'd never actually heard him say it before. "Your amulet," he added, as if she couldn't possibly have known what he was referring to. He'd returned his gaze to Angel who was crossing back to them, the amulet clenched in his fist.

"Why does he need it? I thought it was yours."

The avatar nodded. "My role in this is finished," he stated. "What's left to be done outside of this plane can be done by you, and him." He nodded toward Angel. The way he'd referred to him, the lack of using Angel's name and the emphasis on the 'him', made her frown. Not so happy that he wasn't a real boy, huh?

The thought gave her pause. She sounded like Spike.

"And what is it you expect us to do?" Angel asked. "I assume this has to do with something the Senior Partners are planning."

Clasping his hands in front of him, Fake Angel bowed his head in a deep nod. When he spoke again the words were addressed to the floor, rather than said to either of them. "We don't know exactly what they're planning, but it's going to be big, and it's going to be bloody." When his head raised again, his gaze fixed on Buffy. His eyes were hard, flinty, his mouth set in a determined line. If she hadn't known which Angel was which, she could have mistaken him for the real one.

"When?" Angel asked.

Fake Angel shook his head. "Impossible to say."

"You can see _everything,_" Buffy interrupted. "And so can the Powers. How can you not know?" she demanded. Her voice, louder than she'd intended, echoed through the chamber.

"The Powers have limits, Buffy," Fake Angel said, voice delicate. "The inner workings of Wolfram and Hart are beyond their reach." He looked at Angel. "You're in a unique position to give us a leg up, but then, you knew that."

Angel nodded. "There've been snags, but it's in the works."

"What is?" Buffy asked. Keep her out of the loop, would they? Not likely.

"The amulet will help there," Fake Angel said. "But don't put it on until you're absolutely ready."

Angel studied the black stone in his hand, then slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket. "Right." He sounded unsure, though. "There wasn't much writing on what this does. Even less than on Buffy's."

"It'll do exactly what you need it to," Fake Angel said, responding to the question in Angel's voice.

Angel nodded again. Just once, but slowly, like the words make sense to him.

"Hey!" Buffy exclaimed. "What are you two talking about?"

As one, they looked at her and shook their heads. "Your role in this is separate," Fake Angel said.

"And that means I don't get to know what the rest of the plan is, and how it might affect me? Who did _you_ learn Battle Strategy 101 from? You're setting us up to lose!"

"I'm not, I'm—"

"Buffy." Angel's hand found her shoulder and she looked up at him, shrugging it off. "I've got a play going on that started before you got here. I _can't_ tell you what it is. Please, trust me."

"How can I trust you when you're hiding something from me?" she demanded.

"Because I need you to," he said, pleading. Four years ago, it might've worked. "I'm too far in to screw this up now." The hand that had been on her shoulder clenched. "I'm already too close to blowing it, but if the amulet's going to secure my place then I can still make it."

"Secure your place in _what_?" she asked. Maybe she was grasping at straws, trying to chip through his wall and grabbing at any little bit of information that poked out at her, but dammit, wasn't this _her_ mission?

_'No. They pulled you in to keep him focused, remember?'_

She stomped on the little voice in her head to shut it up. Right. She was just the muscle, and who told the muscle anything?

Angel glanced away from her without answering, looking uncomfortable at receiving the brunt of her stare. His attention returned to Fake Angel. "What's Buffy's role?"

"Doing what she's told like an obedient little soldier," Buffy said, voice painted with false cheer in her best imitation of the Buffy Bot. Both Angels immediately looked uncomfortable. Good.

Fake Angel shook his head after a moment of looking uncertain. "I asked you already if you were wondering about the inscription, and how much you remember of the spell done, after—"

"After I finished up with Acathla's Hell." Angel's head jerked toward her, drawing her eye, but he didn't say anything and she wasn't about to start share time now. "The answer's nothing," she continued.

"I figured as much," Fake Angel said. "You aren't used to magic, and it was quite a change."

A hint of worry slid into Buffy's stomach at the wording. "Change?" she asked, wary. "Change-change or, Buffy's-not-magicky-enough-and-magic-was-a-change-so-it-knocked-her-out change? What kind of change?" She'd panicked when she'd seen the scarring, and yeah, she'd figured it had been some language, words… Related to him kissing her and the power she'd felt, but _what was he talking about?_

She'd stiffened, her breath coming just a little bit quicker than usual as she waited for him to respond. She could see him searching for the words he needed, maybe to soften the blow of whatever he was about to say. Buffy did not like this at all. She should've been more aware, more cautious, more _something._

"What are you talking about?" Angel growled. He'd moved awfully close to her, but it didn't bother her nearly as much as it had been before. If anything, feeling him brushing the slightest bit against her arm was reassuring her. Why wasn't the avatar saying anything?

"You didn't look into it." Finally, words out of his mouth, but not an answer and that was all she really wanted right now.

"_What. Did. You. Do. To. Me?"_ Was she shaking? Please, let it be in anger and not fear.

Maybe sensing that he'd gone from safe to very, very in danger in the course of about three minutes, the avatar held out his hands, apparently trying to calm down both her _and_ Angel. "We had to ensure you would be ready, no matter when Wolfram and Hart put their plan into motion."

"And I'll _be_ ready," Buffy said, her teeth clenched together. "You haven't answered my question." But Angel's hands had found her waist, arms starting to creep around it in an embrace as though he'd figured out something she hadn't. Buffy stiffened, wanting to pull away because no matter how familiar those arms were, it felt like he was preparing for the fallout of something she didn't even know was happening yet.

"No matter when," Fake Angel said again. "Whether it be in the next six months, or in the next 600 years."

Buffy's brow creased, confusion hitting her as she tried to process what he was saying. Then her stomach clenched, nausea filling her and making her sure, for a moment, that she was going to puke as it all hit her at once.

"What did you do?" she rasped, voice gone, tears burning at the corners of her eyes, a loud rushing in her ears. They couldn't have. She was misinterpreting everything, had to be. Oh, God. But if she was then why was Angel standing so close, like he'd come to the same conclusion she had? And why wasn't anyone saying anything?

She was cold, and still shaking though she couldn't be sure it wasn't shivering at this point. "What did you do?" she asked again, a little louder this time though she still couldn't manage to scream it as loudly as she wanted to.

"Power, Buffy. You've been given power, more than you can possibly imagine—more than the Powers have _ever_ bestowed on any mortal creature before." The timbre of his voice had changed, become deeper to resonate through the room. He wasn't playing Angel now.

"I don't _want_ your power!" Exactly what the Shadow Men had tried to do. This was exactly what they'd tried to do to her when she was fighting the First and she'd given in this time because he looked like Angel. They'd _played _her. All that business of not caring about Slayers but of her being Chosen to do something for them, and the contradicting notions of her being important, but also just there to keep Angel focused.

"It is done," the avatar said. He didn't look repentant.

"Undo it," she whispered, hoping her voice sounded as dangerous as she wanted it to and not as desperate as she thought it did.

"There is no undoing it."

Her heart pounded in her chest, and her stomach churned. Pure, righteous anger was making her trembling slow, at least, and she was slowly reclaiming control of her body. She narrowed her eyes.

"Then good luck getting me to help you. I'm done. You've violated my _humanity_ and you think I'm still going to help you? That I'll still work for you?"

Figuring she could keep her feet underneath her without her knees giving out, she nudged at Angel. His arms fell away, slowly, and he didn't move away from her, but at least she was standing on her own. Progress. Slow progress, but progress.

The avatar said nothing for a long moment, countenance still unapologetic. Then, "You have no choice. You've been Chosen."

"There's always a choice, and right now I'm picking team didn't-condemn-me-to-eternity." She couldn't say the word. Maybe if she didn't say it, and no one confirmed it, she could assume she'd jumped to conclusions.

Turning away from the avatar, she inhaled through her nose and looked up at Angel. "We got what we came here for. Let's find Spike and get out." She wished she could read his face a little bit better right now, that he wasn't hiding whatever he was thinking. Then again, she'd probably read pity, so maybe she didn't want to know. She avoided his eyes just in case.

"Buffy," the avatar said.

She shook her head. "You can come and find me when you have a reversal spell. I'm not going anywhere." A bitter laugh left her at that and she twisted her lips, biting down on the lower one to shut herself up.

Oh. God.

-8-

They found Spike hanging from an ankle in an alcove off of the main cave, back almost at the hole they'd jumped through to get into the tunnel. Neither she nor Angel had said a thing as they made their way back, but he'd offered his hand and she'd grabbed onto it, taking comfort from his presence, if not from the knowledge that once they were out of the cave, they were back to being Angel and Nina, and Buffy the ex-girlfriend.

"How'd this happen?" she asked, amusement at his predicament and relief at finding him well chasing away a bit of the gloomy feeling that had settled into her.

"I'd really rather not say," Spike said. His eyes narrowed when he noticed she and Angel were holding hands, but all he said was, "Be a pet, love, and get me down?"

Between her and Angel, it was easy enough to untie the snare holding him up. He fell on his head when they released it, though, and curses flowed from his mouth as he righted himself, stood and straightened his coat.

"More embarrassing than hanging from your ankle in a cave, and apparently having got there all on your own?" Buffy asked.

"Not saying," he repeated, running his fingers back through hair that gravity had released from its gel. "Did you get the trinket? Can we _go_ now?"

She shared a look with Angel, tempted to dump on Spike exactly what they'd learned, right here and right now.

"We can go," Angel said.

"Wait. Hold up, what's going on?" Spike's gaze darted back and forth between them. "You two didn't shag, did you? Because if he's about to lose his soul, I'm not getting in a car with him."

It was ridiculous enough that Buffy laughed, just a little. Trust Spike to cheer her up, even without knowing what was wrong. "No," she said pointedly. "We'll fill you in when we get back."


	35. Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

"Are you almost done?" Buffy asked. "It's cold in here."

She shifted on the chair she was straddling, trying to peer over her shoulder at Angel, Spike and Wesley gathered behind her. The flimsy, open-backed hospital gown she wore didn't offer much in the way of movement, though. At least, not if she wanted to maintain what little modesty it allowed her. She settled for tossing her head, letting her hair fan out across her back, and shifting her shoulders, trying to loosen the tension in them.

"Another few minutes of your patience, Buffy, please," Wesley said. She grimaced at the warm, damp sensation of his breath on her back. Just how close did he need to sit to copy out the writing, anyway?

"You shouldn't have hidden this," Angel said. Buffy put another tick in her mental tally of variations on _that_ theme, bringing the running total to six since she'd given in and told Angel what the 'inscription' the avatar had mentioned was.

"Nope," she agreed, because why not, he apparently wasn't going to let it go otherwise. "But I did, and now we're going to find out if the Powers are hiding anything in the fine print."

"I wish—We could've done this _before_. _Before_, so that instead of reacting we could have demanded more of an explanation."

Buffy jerked around to glare at him, ignoring Wesley's dismayed noise at her motion.

"Because you've showed such a huge interest in full disclosure so far."

Angel's lips thinned, his eyes furious that she'd alluded to his "secret plan".

"Buffy, if you could…" Wesley prompted. Her gaze slid to the ex-Watcher and she rolled her eyes when he gestured at the book he'd been copying the writing down in. She returned to her original position, pulling her hair in front of a shoulder so it didn't block any of the wording.

"If you're going to argue with me, Angel, at least stand where I can see you." She heard Spike snort as Angel came into her line of sight.

"I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm only—"

"Telling me how you think I should've handled it, because if I'd done it your way you would've known what was going on and felt in control."

"That's not—"

"If you two could please, for a moment, stop arguing so that I might be able to focus on my work?" Wesley interrupted.

"You actually getting anything out of that gibberish?" Spike asked.

"I've some idea, of course," Wesley replied at length. "The writing system itself is used in any number of languages within the same family, but as I know at least one of the stanzas in the spell is about immortality, I've been able to narrow it down to two possibilities." He paused, expelling a breath. Buffy jumped at the cold touch of the end of his pen on her back.

"This section I believe to be the most relevant. Once I've determined the language—or, well, dialect, really—I'll be able to cross-reference with other texts. I'm hoping to find something in the archives that might be similar. A record of spells in this tongue, perhaps."

Angel was nodding, she thought. Her eyes had slid out of focus during the explanation, though. She didn't particularly _care_ what language the words were in, as long as someone could tell her what they meant in English and, more importantly, what they meant for her indefinite future.

"Is it only the spell?" Angel asked.

"As far as I've been able to tell so far, yes. I know we were hoping for some sort of prophecy, or detailed revelation, but I haven't seen any indicator of one so far."

"Long spell," Buffy remarked.

"I would hazard a guess to say that the wording had to be extensive and accurate in order to anchor the spell to you, Buffy. Possibly, it will provide you with greater ability to manipulate the magics in the Kostheshr Hekmon."

"He says, as though that was something I wanted to hear."

"Not wanted, perhaps, but deserved," Wesley replied.

Buffy hesitated, then looked over her shoulder at him and smiled a bit. Nice of him to acknowledge that, and a show of support from a place she hadn't really been expecting it.

"Fair, I guess. Thanks," she said quietly.

Wesley nodded and returned to writing in the pad on his lap.

"Should call up this avatar guy," Spike said. "Make him take a message to the Powers to let them know you're not going to take this." Buffy groaned.

"I tried."

"Do it again, then. Don't tell me you're going to—"

"Shut up, Spike," Angel said.

Buffy put her head in her hands. "Not now," she muttered. There was a bit of a headache starting to form behind her temples, and she rubbed at them with the tips of her fingers.

"I have a meeting to get to, anyway, if we're almost done here."

Buffy looked up again, confused when instead of seeing Angel standing by the window, she was on a busy street, people running toward her. Screams filled her ears as she jumped off to one side, trying to see what was chasing them and avoiding getting trampled at the same time.

"Buffy?"

Angel's office, now. Angel flipped a couch, shouting something. Blood spattered his chin and stained his shirt. She managed to tear her eyes from his game face with enough time to notice the amulet glinting around his neck before the scene changed again…

To the lobby outside of his office. Harmony was backed into a corner behind her desk—Buffy could see that much clearly, at least. People were screaming and running everywhere, too; she could hear the footfalls. Then Angel, snarling and barking orders at people, again in game face, still with blood on his chin—though his shirt was untouched—a body at his feet.

"Buffy!"

Buffy opened her eyes, relieved that she appeared to be back in the here-and-now. The vision couldn't have taken any longer than a few seconds, but Angel was crouched in front of her, looking up, and after a quick glance around she located Spike and Wesley as well, both closer than they had been.

"What did you see?" Angel asked. He sounded worried. She shook her head, standing slowly and trying to put the images together. The running and screaming on the streets she really didn't get, but the images afterward… Could she be right? Could that have been Angelus? The body… Maybe she was jumping to conclusions.

"Buffy!" Angel barked. "What. Did. You. See?"

She glared at him, rubbing at her temple to try and massage away the dull, throbbing pain there. "Don't shout at me, Angel," she replied, still trying to piece the vision together in her head. The last time she'd had a vision had been the one of the Turok-Han, back when they were fighting the First in Sunnydale. Either something thought Angelus was just as important as the First Evil and an army of ancient vampires pouring from a Hellmouth, or her powers had been messed with. She was betting on the latter.

Knowing they were waiting for her to explain, Buffy stood. She crossed her arms over her chest to hold the flimsy gown in place when it started to fall forward. "I think," she bit down on the inside of her lip. "_Think_," she repeated, "that I saw Angelus."

There was a palpable rise of the tension in the room. She gave Angel a long look. He'd barely reacted to the announcement. Did he know something?

"You're… _positive?_" Wesley asked.

She turned to him. "Not generally what 'think' means, Wes," she replied. "But yeah, I'm pretty sure."

The room was quiet as they took that in, and Buffy offered them a tight smile.

"Do we have a timeframe? Was there any indication at all of when this might occur?"

"No," Buffy replied, replaying the images in her head. She rolled her shoulders a bit, trying to shake the discomfort starting to settle over her. Was she missing something in the vision? It sure seemed like it.

"I'm going to get dressed. When the sun goes down I'm hitting the streets." She could try and figure out exactly where that first image had happened. L.A. was a big city, but something had told her it was right near Wolfram and Hart. Maybe the abject looks of terror on the faces of the people in the mob.

"This may be preventable," Wesley said. "It's possible the Powers are merely warning us of a potential future."

"Were you sleeping when they covered Slayer visions in Watcher school?" Buffy asked. Wesley frowned at her.

"Your abilities have veered drastically from those of a normal Slayer," he said. Buffy held back a sigh. She'd totally walked into this lecture. "I don't think it's too farfetched to suggest that the vision may have been the Powers warning of a potential future, rather than it having been precognitive in nature."

"It's preventable," Angel said shortly.

"Well, yeah," Spike chimed. "You and Buffy just keep your hands off each other and we've got nothing to worry about." Angel's jaw tightened.

"Hopefully it's that simple," Wesley said. "Even so, I'll alert Lorne and Gunn so that can make appropriate preparations."

"I'll make sure the containment room is reinforced," Angel said. "But someone else is going to have to set the security and override codes."

"It may be better to disable them altogether and rely on steel and padlocks," Wesley said.

Angel nodded. "You're probably right."

Apparently forgotten for the moment, Buffy studied them. Spike looked the faintest bit amused, and crossed to stand by her as her gaze passed over him to Wesley's calculating expression and then Angel's closeted one.

"You said you had a meeting?" Buffy asked. Surprise appeared on Angel's face, and after a moment he nodded.

"With Eve." His attention had turned to Wesley. "I need to get down there before she comes looking. Shouldn't be more than half an hour, we'll finish preparations after."

He was nearly to the elevator before he paused, half turning back to them. "Buffy, maybe you shouldn't patrol tonight."

Her eyebrows went up. "If I don't go out, I'm going to start indiscriminately killing people that work for you."

He made an irritated noise in his throat, though it sounded more defeated than surprised. "Just be careful," he said. "L.A. isn't Sunnydale."

He left before she could blast him for the comment, and she reined in her ire. Had he always been _this_ overbearing?

"Who's Eve?" she asked.

"Angel's liaison with the Senior Partners," Wesley said, sounding distant as he studied his notepad.

"Meaning…?" she prompted.

"She whispers things in his ear to keep him toeing the line for Wolfram and Hart, far as I see it. Wish I knew what she has on him," Spike said. Buffy gave him a curious look. Wesley was frowning.

"Eve shows up and causes havoc for us all every once in a while, though I personally haven't seen her as often of late. She's a creation of the Senior Partners and passes information directly from them to Angel."

So, evil had its own Fake Angel. Interesting.

"And what's their meeting about?"

"Our first-quarter profit margin, I would imagine," Wesley said. "We _are_ running a business here.

"I'm going to go down to my office so I can start translating this. Hopefully I'll find something out before there's a new crisis upon us." He gave her a tight smile and a nod and left the penthouse. Buffy watched him go.

"What do you think?" she asked Spike.

"Of what, pet?" he asked, sitting on the arm of a couch. He looked thoughtful. Good. She could use Spike's insight, right about now.

"Eve. The spell. _Any_ of it. You've been Mr Quiet, which isn't in character, so, spill."

He smiled at her. "Well, Eve I'm not all that fond of. She got Angel and me wailing on each other a few months back. Over that Shanshu prophecy crap, right? I mean, I'm all for being considered by the universe or whatever for another chance, but…" he trailed off and his brow creased. "Where did I lose you, pet?"

He read her way too well. "Shanshu prophecy?"

"Yeah, you know, the bugaboo that says the vampire with a soul will save the world and become human again, or whatever." He paused. "You don't know," he said after studying her for another minute.

"And this is either you or Angel?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, it would've just been Angel for ages, 'til I went and got my soul and screwed everything up for him. Now, who knows?"

Human again. "And you believe it?"

"Don't know," he said, and shrugged. "Know I did, then there was this whole desert quest for a cup of Mountain Dew and it was all very… set up. So is the prophecy actually real? I don't know."

"Does Angel think it is?"

"You'd have to ask him, love. Probably. Seems like the kind of thing he'd grab onto without letting go."

"Right…" Buffy said.

Her gaze found the window and she studied the city beyond. Vampire with a soul. Human again. Yeah, it sounded like something Angel would cling to.

"Given you something to think about?"

Had he ever. Question was, did she tell him or keep it to herself?

"How literal do you think this prophecy is?" she asked.

He was silent for a moment, frowning. Finally he said, "Never thought about it. Guess I just figured it meant what it said. Why, pet? What've you thought of?"

Buffy put her hand to her head. It was almost laughable, and maybe too simple. She hated prophecies. So, so much.

"I had a brief stint as a vampire. Soul intact, and everything."

Spike fell off the couch.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks for 100 reviews, guys! <em>


	36. Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. She definitely shouldn't have dumped the info on him the way she had. And really, she'd been a vampire with a soul in some Nightmare universe thing. There was no reason for a prophecy from the real world to have anything to do with that, right?

Right. And she would tell Spike that once he stopped laughing and got up off the floor. It didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon.

Shaking her head, Buffy slipped into her room and changed out of the hospital gown, feeling a lot more comfortable once she was fully dressed. How impervious was this immortality thing going to make her? So far, it'd just made her feel more vulnerable.

"Are you done?" she asked, unimpressed, when she re-emerged and found him righting himself.

A snicker. "Can't picture you as a vamp, love." He paused, apparently trying for a moment, and then shook his head. "Well, I can, but it's scary."

"Hey! I had a soul."

"And how did that work out for you?" he asked, looking amused. Nice to know he was taking this seriously.

"We do not have time for this," she said.

Spike sobered more quickly than she'd thought possible, considering. "Maybe it's better if that prophecy isn't a thing anymore," he said.

"Assuming it's not, how so?" she asked, crossing to the window to resume her study of the city. L.A. Weird how it didn't feel much like home. Who would've thought she'd miss Sunnydale?

"Only reason either of us would want to be human is for you, pet."

The words were soft enough that she wondered, for a moment, if she was even meant to have heard them. She took in a deep breath, pressing her lips together and squeezing her eyes shut to try and control the prickling at the edges. Right. Vampires, immortal. -Ish. Buffy, immortal. Maybe without the –ish.

"Neither of us really knows what Angel wants."

"I saw you two holding hands in that cave," he said dryly. "What he wants is pretty apparent to everyone but you, I'd say."

She frowned at him, crossing her arms and trying to look unimpressed, even with her mind stuck back on her and Angel kissing. "He's got someone," she reminded him. Or maybe she needed to hear herself say it as a reminder. Not that _that_ should be the reminder she needed for why they couldn't be together.

She _had_ learned that lesson, right?

"Uh huh," Spike said, sounding unconvinced. "You had a vision about Angelus, not even an hour ago, remember? And he's already sleeping with Nina, so whatever brings him about is probably not her."

Buffy's brow scrunched at the unexpected revelation. "Oh."

_'_Oh_? Nice involuntary response there,'_ she scolded herself. Of _course_ Angel and his girlfriend were—

"Oh, my god," she said quietly.

"Someone's just realised she's jealous."

"I'm not," she shot back, way too quickly. She _was_. She was_ jealous._ Damn.

Spike was grinning at her. "You _are_."

The tiny, little ant-people on the sidewalk outside were fascinating. Very, very fascinating. So much more fascinating than this conversation, which had gone from something she didn't want to think too hard about to something she wanted to think about even less. Emotions. Emotions were way too messy.

Spike touched her shoulder. "Hey," he said. Again, sober and sombre. Nice that he had so much control when hers had apparently been lost somewhere. Maybe it had stayed under Sunnydale. "I'm here for you, okay? With you. I'm not going anywhere."

She stared at her toes, feeling her heart speeding up, not able to muster a response to the sentiment. She knew he meant it, and that somehow made it even harder to take.

Forever. Forever was a long time.

She closed her eyes again, a tear—quickly wiped away—squeezing its way out. She took a deep breath.

"I don't want to do this forever, Spike," she whispered, willing her bottom lip to stop shaking so she sounded a little less pitiful. "I _can't_ do this forever." Her eyes stung, and the wobble in her voice was still there, and she knew that if she started crying now, she wasn't going to stop.

"Let's just take it one day at a time, okay?" Spike said, his hand tightening on her shoulder. She nodded, but immediately started shaking her head.

"I can't. I _can't_," she mumbled, eyes squeezed shut. A sob escaped her throat, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, biting down on a finger and inhaling sharply through her nose. Calm down. Calm down.

The pressure of Spike's hand left her shoulder and Buffy opened her eyes. She met, then quickly averted her gaze from, his look of concern. Stress. Just stress. She would get over it.

"Not the end of the world, right?" she asked, dropping her hand. "I mean, hey, I've _got_ 'til the end of the world to get used to it." Her hands clenched into fists. This was hardly the worst thing that had ever happened to her. It was just fresh, because it was recent. Hard to deal with, because she should have _known_ something else was going on. Especially after Fake Angel told her that her memories of the Powers' dimension were lacking.

Spike didn't reply, just continued watching her with a worried look in his eye, and a compassionate set to his features. He seemed a lot taller than usual, too, but maybe that was just because she felt like she wanted to crawl into a hole until she'd really had time to think.

"What if there was—"

"Don't, pet," he interrupted, shaking his head. "I know what you're going to say, and don't. The Powers are too full of themselves to bother worrying about whether or not you like what they did. You never had a say, and you couldn't have done anything differently. It's not your fault, okay?"

There had to have been something, if she could just figure it out. If she could figure it out, maybe she could reverse what they'd done. And, sure, the avatar had said they couldn't undo it, but why should she take his lies at face value?

"Okay?" Spike prodded.

She nodded, lips pressed together.

"Say it," he said. "'Cause your eyes are telling me you don't believe it."

"Okay," she mumbled, swiping at one watery eye. She took a long breath in, exhaling with a teary-eyed smile. "Thanks, Spike," she said, and hugged him. He held her until she forced her arms to stop clutching at his shoulders and moved away.

"It's not that bad, you know."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "What?"

"Immortality. Has its upsides. The rapid healing. The not aging."

"I already have the first one, and they never said anything about not aging," she pointed out, heading for her room. She hadn't _really_ been crying, but the desire to wash the tear residue off her cheeks was there anyway. She needed to be fresh faced to stare down all of the evil people in the building.

Spike, who'd started following her, stopped. His expression froze, comically, as though someone had hit a switch to shut him down. When he'd recovered, he said, "They want you to fight for them, pet. Aging'd seriously get in the way of that."

"Maybe the minions of hell will die laughing seeing two-hundred year old, myopic me rolling toward them in my super-futuristic wheelchair. Ooh! Maybe it will _fly!_"

"That's not going to happen."

"I'm just saying, we don't have any details, and we—I—need to be ready for anything." A glance in the bathroom mirror showed pink eyes and a desperate need to touch up her mascara, but otherwise she didn't look too much like she'd almost had a breakdown.

"You still have your reflection, and you can still go out in the sun. I think you're winning."

"Side effects yet to be determined, I bet," Buffy replied. "More clinical trials needed." She turned on the tap, looking at Spike while she waited for the water temperature to adjust, one finger held under the flow. He stood leaning against the doorframe, attention apparently elsewhere. "What?"

"Elevator," he said. "Angel's—"

"Buffy, we need to talk!" Angel shouted. He sounded irritated—a lot more than he had been when he'd left the penthouse.

She shared an amused look with Spike. Apparently the meeting had been about more than profit margins.


	37. Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When she emerged from the bathroom, her face cleaned of any traces of breakdown, Angel was pacing by the window. Spike was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's—"

"I sent him downstairs," Angel said. "We need to talk." He stopped pacing, looking around briefly before he went to stand behind the nearest couch and braced himself with his hands on the back of it. "Can you…" he gestured to the other couch.

Ignoring the invitation to sit, and wondering what he possibly could have done to make Spike leave so quickly, Buffy crossed her arms. She remained standing where she was, on the opposite side of the sitting area from him. "What's this about?"

"The parts of your little inter-dimensional time travelling trip that you haven't told anyone about!" he shouted. His jaw snapped shut after the outburst, lips going rigid like he had his teeth clenched and was struggling to keep control.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific," she said. What did he know? What could he _possibly_ know, and how?

"Sit," he said. "Please?"

"Not until you tell me what you think you know, _and _what's been going on with you."

Angel looked away, hands clenching on the couch back, fingers digging into the leather. He'd been pretty growly since she'd arrived, but this was a new extreme. He kept making jerky motions, as though he had something unpleasant on his mind and couldn't quite shake it. She supposed it shouldn't surprise her that a meeting with evil had made him this angry.

"We need to talk," he said again. Scrounging for words? His expression kept twisting from angry to confused, maybe even a little lost, like he didn't have the topic he wanted them to discuss firmly in his mind and was trying to get a solid grasp of it.

"Why don't _you_ sit?" she suggested.

He looked startled, like it hadn't even crossed his mind to. "I'm fine," he said. He met her expression of disbelief with a stubborn look and a repeated, "I'm fine."

"Tell me what we need to talk about, then," she said. If he said he was fine, she saw no point in arguing.

Angel released the couch and made a frustrated gesture with his hands. It looked desperate, like he was trying to find something to latch on to and couldn't. Buffy had the feeling he thought she should _know_ what he wanted to talk about, but two things came to mind and she really didn't want to broach either one of them if it _wasn't_ what had him in this state.

Of course, he might be well aware of both topics anyway.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked. His voice was so quiet; a whispered, half pleading tone that she hadn't heard from him in years. Her brow contorted in concern. "Not anyone else, but at least me?" His voice retained the almost trembling tone of query.

She didn't like how vulnerable he sounded. Hadn't he been spouting off about some big plan he had, something to do with the Senior Partners, not even twelve hours ago? Vulnerability and trying to take down evil did not go well together.

She _would_ screw up his plans just by being present.

"Angel, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," she said, trying to keep her voice at the same level as his was. She felt a little like she was trying to avoid spooking a wild animal.

He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. In rapid succession he'd gone from holding them folded in front of him, to crossing his arms, to letting them hang at his sides, and finally to shoving them in his pant pockets. "No," he said sharply. "This I _know_ you remember. You alluded to it when we were looking for the amulet. I didn't know what to think and it slipped my mind, but Eve filled me in. Buffy, why didn't you _tell_ me?"

She'd alluded to it? What had she mentioned down there? A replay of their trip through the cave flashed in her mind. She fast-forward past Fake Angel's awful revelation, trying to remember what she'd said. Wait. Rewind. Just before his big reveal. She'd mentioned Acathla's Hell dimension, and Angel had noticed but not said anything. She'd completely forgotten.

"He said you knew," she whispered. If he hadn't… and oh _god_ she knew the state he'd been in when she returned him to Sunnydale, so how could he, really?

There hadn't been a good time to bring it up, even if she'd thought to and wanted to talk about it, but she should've mentioned it. In hindsight…

She hated hindsight.

Angel shook his head, lips parted like he wanted to say something, to be a more active participant in the conversation. "I remember, I guess…" Confusion, still, and hesitancy. This was why she hadn't wanted to talk about it, ever. She didn't need a morose walk down memory lane, and she certainly didn't need to drag Angel down it with her.

"I remember, once. I thought I was…" he shook his head, as thought he could will the words to shake free. "…Hallucinating, or something. It wasn't _real_." He'd grabbed the back of the couch again and was squeezing it. Otherwise, he stood stock still, the faintest look of embarrassment showing through the confusion in his features.

"It was real," she said, trying for reassuring.

"The other times it wasn't."

Tears leapt to her eyes, and she pressed her lips together. The faintest feeling of guilt tightened in her gut—an old, familiar feeling that crept up on her when something reminded her of that summer waiting tables, and the months of Angel's recovery that followed. That feeling was tighter, now. Tighter than it had been in years.

She could have saved him sooner, returned to an earlier point in the timeline. She'd let the avatar psych her out and that… that wasn't acceptable. It only made her gut clench more, seeing the vulnerability he showed now, when she'd thought he'd long ago recovered from his stint there.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and she didn't know what the apology was supposed to cover, but she knew it didn't feel like enough. She'd done what she had to do, then and now. Sending Angel to hell. Rescuing Angel from hell. Not mentioning to Angel that she knew just how he'd gotten back. Still. '_I'm sorry'_? How lame could she get?

Angel shook his head, finally stepping around the couch and dropping into it. He rested his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his hands. He looked tired. Buffy gazed at him for a long moment, hoping he might respond to her lame apology, before she crossed over and sat on the opposite couch. She remembered what had happened the last time they'd been alone and seated side by side.

"It's not your fault," Angel said, voice muffled by his hands.

"For not telling you," she clarified, not sure what he was referring to.

He nodded, silent; deep in thought, or maybe in another place altogether.

"I don't remember," he said after a long moment. "Not in any detail, anyway." He looked up, meeting her eyes, his hand held apart, open—still in the position they'd been in to hold his head, but now empty. Open, like he was waiting for something to fall into them. "It all blurred together after a while. A hundred years of very little variety," he shook his head. "I should remember an abrupt change, but my memory jumps from hell to finding you on campus. There's nothing in between."

Buffy kept quiet while he spoke. He'd never really talked about this before, not in any detail. She didn't want to interrupt. When he appeared to have finished, though, she sighed, rubbing her hands up and down the tops of her thighs.

"What did Eve tell you?"

"That you'd been there. A second time. Brought me back. I didn't believe her at first—how could you have?—but it started making more sense than the First Evil."

"Time travel. Yet another new tool in Buffy's belt. Probably packaged in with the immortality."

"The amulet?" His eyes found it.

"Yeah. Bends time and space, or something."

"How did you do it?"

His gaze locked so intently on hers that she couldn't have looked away if she wanted to—and she tried, getting as far as his hairline before she was drawn back in.

"I don't know how to explain it," she said, but started anyway, telling him about the rings and the magic that the amulet had transferred into them, the precision in matching up the two timelines so that he was pulled through at the right time.

She could have done better. That was the thought that kept surfacing. She could have done it all sooner, saved him from the agony—both the agony of being there and of this conversation now. She didn't voice it, though. No point in bringing up something that would only have Angel outwardly deflecting while his thoughts went in who-knew-what other direction.

So, Buffy changed the topic. Well, kind of.

"There's something else."

His expression turned briefly wary, then resolute as he covered up and put away his emotions. It was very neat, very practiced… Very Angel.

"What is it?" he asked. Calm, preparing for her to drop a bomb on him, and rightfully so. She gave him ten seconds to crack, if what Spike had told her about the prophecy was true. Then again, maybe he would agree that she'd jumped to conclusions.

Still not quite sure why she was doing it—maybe some part of her thought it was best to finally come clean—Buffy told him about the couple of days she'd spent as a vampire.

Angel remained impassive through the story, which somehow ended up a lot longer and more detailed than what she'd told Spike—and went beyond what she'd planned on saying. It felt good to talk about it. Not a weight-being-lifted sort of feeling, or anything—no, she felt more like one had been added on, with a prophecy in the question. But still, it felt good.

It felt a bit less good when Angel's impassiveness remained after she'd finished talking. Quite a few very, very long seconds after she finished.

"You've told Spike about this?" he asked finally. Buffy nodded. Expression saying he didn't really want the answer, Angel said, "And?"

Had he not leapt to the same conclusion Spike had? The same one she had? Maybe, more likely, he wanted to see if _Spike _had arrived at the same conclusion, or…

"He mentioned a prophecy."

Angel's expression still hadn't changed, though he nodded at the words.

"I want to talk to Wesley about this," he said. She could have rolled her eyes at how much of a default response that seemed to have become for him, but resisted, if only because she'd been really wanting to talk to Giles about the same thing.

"What are you thinking?" she asked. He could at least give her that much before he went ahead and started sharing with everyone else in his little group.

"Immediately? That it can't be you, no matter what it looks like right now," he sounded vaguely angry. He probably thought she was being self-centred. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Makes some kind of weird sense," she replied, willing to argue the point though there was no heat in her voice. "In a 'the-Powers-don't-care-and-like-to-mess-with-us' sort of way."

Angel shook his head. "I can't believe it."

He didn't want to, was what he meant. He _had_ been holding onto this tightly—not that there had ever been any doubt about that. She couldn't figure out if dropping this on him had compounded her lingering feelings of guilt, or lessened them.

"Maybe Wesley can take another look at the prophecy when he gets a chance, let us know for sure. 'Cause I'd really like to know if I inadvertently fulfilled one, too."

Nodding again. Not that Angel was usually Mr Talkative, but he'd been chattier—or at least forthcoming—than usual until she'd ruined his sharing mood by being all cool about bringing him back from hell. And then she'd gone and ruined it even further when she'd brought up _this_ topic.

At least it was starting to get late. She could get out of here soon; take a walk, stake something, get some air. A bit of space was what she needed. Maybe what they all needed.

Angel rose, drawing her attention. "You're still going out tonight?" he asked, as though he'd been privy to her thoughts. Maybe he had been. He wasn't wearing his amulet, hadn't yet put it on to her knowledge, but who knew what kind of powers just having it might grant him?

"Yep," Buffy said. She stayed seated. The couch was comfy, and she certainly didn't have anywhere to be.

A fraction of a frown. "Be careful," he said. "I meant what I said before—"

"L.A.'s not even on a Hellmouth, Angel. I think I can handle it," she said, ire instantly spiking.

"I know," he said. "I know you can, and probably better than I could at this point. I just…" he shook his head. "I just worry about you."

"Thank you," she said. "Now stop."

He gave her a weak smile, glancing around and appearing lost for a moment before he started toward the door. "Oh, one more thing," he said, pausing. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. "Dawn called and left a message with Harmony when we were in Sunnydale. Here," he held the paper out to her. Frowning, Buffy got up and took it from him.

"I'll call her, I guess," she said, looking at the unfamiliar number on the _'While you were out'_ page. Dawn was probably furious she hadn't called already. She should've done that first thing.

"Stay at Spike's tonight, so you don't have to worry about getting back in the building. Save the call for the morning, when you get back. Make sure she's awake," Angel suggested.

Her attention turned sharply from the paper. Stay at Spike's? Had she heard that right?

"Angel?"

But he was waving, already leaving the condo. Feeling unsettled, Buffy stared at the elevator long after the doors had closed and the car had descended.


	38. Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Buffy had a bit of a bounce in her step as she made her way up the front steps of Wolfram and Hart the next morning. Patrol had gone well; she hadn't run into any massive mobs of running, frightened people—or small ones, for that matter—and she'd gotten a few hours of good sleep back at Spike's afterward. Feeling ready to take on the world—or at least the evil, seedy non-human parts of it—Buffy ascended the steps quickly.

Her mood, buoyant with the confidence that knowing she was still in top Slayer form, faltered a bit at the sight of people standing gathered around the terrace leading to the doors. They looked, for the most part, like Wolfram and Hart employees, but at least a handful—those standing nearest to the doors and peering inside of the building—looked like clients. What was going on?

A bit of a feeling of dread starting to build in her stomach, Buffy made her way to the doors. She noted a couple of people pulling half-heartedly at the handles as she approached. The doors didn't budge. Locked? That would explain the gathering, at least. But why would the doors be locked?

A woman approached her as Buffy, set on trying each of the doors herself, strode to the farthest one and tugged on it.

"Do you work here?" she asked. Shaking her head, Buffy glanced at her. Well-dressed—certainly more business-y and office-appropriate than Buffy herself currently was—the woman could have been absolutely anyone, and here for any reason. She was probably a client. Did she know her lawyers were more than run-of-the-mill evil? Did she care?

"Nope," Buffy replied, moving on to the next door. It groaned when she threw extra strength into pulling on it, but didn't give way.

The woman looked disappointed. "So you can't let us in then," she said, unnecessarily, and started turning away. "We've tried all the doors," she added, like it was a considerate afterthought that Buffy might not deserve because she hadn't come bearing a key.

Buffy tried the rest of the doors, the dread in her gut building at both the resistance and the apparent lack of anyone in the lobby on the other side who could let them in. Something was going on, something big—she could feel it. She absolutely had to get inside.

A cursory scan of the group of people behind her didn't reveal anyone she knew. They were probably already at work, upstairs and locked in as surely as she and all these other people were locked out. A couple of people were on cell phones, wearing frustrated expressions that suggested they couldn't get through to anyone in the building. A few others were leaving, even as fresh, perplexed faces took their place.

At least no one was panicking—yet. If anything, even those still lingering looked hopeful about their chances of getting a long weekend, and were probably only still here because they were used to the pre-Angel policies of Wolfram and Hart and feared being disembowelled if they left.

She made her way over to a man in a suit who'd hung up his phone only moments before. "Has anyone heard from someone inside? Boss? Co-worker? Reception?" The man shook his head after each question.

"No calls out, either. Not to any of us, anyway," he said. "It could be a drill. Or something in one of the containment levels could have escaped, who knows? I say give it 'til noon, and if they haven't cleared it up, we might as well all go home."

Rolling her shoulders and contemplating her chances of success if she tried to punch through a door, or rip one from its hinges, Buffy nodded.

"No one here's connected to any of the big bosses, huh?" she asked. Pointless question. She'd never seen this guy before, and he clearly didn't know who she was, so he probably wouldn't know if anyone had any contact with Angel's crew or not.

"Anyone who is has been here for a couple of hours already, I bet. They'll all be trapped inside, too."

Wonderful.

Buffy pulled her cell phone from her pocket and punched in Angel's number, beginning to pace in a circle around the terrace as it rang. And rang. And rang, until it cut to voice mail. She'd expected it. If no one else was answering their cell phones, why should Angel be able to get to his?

Well, because he was Angel. And the CEO, of course. But mostly, Angel. That was what the little voice in her head was insisting, anyway.

She tried the call again. This time, Angel picked up on the third ring.

"Buffy," Angel greeted. He sounded okay, if a little stiff. She could hear something weird in the background. Muffled, like he was far from it or covering the mouthpiece, but it sounded vaguely like pained moaning.

"Why's the building locked down?" she asked. "Is everything okay?" She waved off a couple of people who had caught on that she'd had her call answered.

A '_thunk'_, and the tinkling sound of breaking glass, came through the phone.

"Everything's fine," Angel said a moment later.

"Doesn't sound like it. What's going on, Angel?" she asked. Targeting a shady area, Buffy slipped away from the crowd. More weird noises came through the phone. "Are you fighting?" Why had he answered the phone if he was in the middle of a fight?

"Defending," Angel said. Buffy's brow furrowed. She couldn't blame him for the brief answers; his attention was clearly divided. But who—or what—was he fighting? And why had it locked down the building?

"Okay. I need you to let me in," she said, hearing another _'thunk.' _It sounded like someone was firing a crossbow, the bolts sinking into the wall close enough to Angel for the microphone to pick up the noise.

"Can't open the building to the public, that would be chaos." Did he sound amused? "You'll be able to get in through the motor pool entrance."

The phone went dead, dial tone ringing in her ear. Buffy took off at a run toward Angel's private entrance, the feeling of dread in her stomach building with each pounding of her foot on the pavement.

-8-

The motor pool entrance hadn't been unlocked, either, and it took Buffy nearly fifteen minutes to finally break through the reinforced steel pedestrian door. The elevator, she'd quickly discovered, was offline, too.

She took the stairs. All who-knew-how-many flights of them, two steps at a time, her pulse racing. Adrenaline shot through her system, fuelled by her need to get to the top. To find out what was going on.

One flight, two, ten… she stopped counting. Get to the top. Get to Angel's office—hope that was where he'd been when he'd answered. If the apocalypse had already come calling, she needed to be there. Just get there, and everything else could come after.

Bursting through the door, Buffy had a split second to take in the scene, déjà vu throwing her for a moment before she recovered. Her vision was playing out a lot sooner than she had hoped. There was debris everywhere. The fight had been going on for a while, and she caught sight of Angel running a finger along his bottom lip, wiping up a trickle of blood from his chin. He sucked the blood from the tip of his finger. She threw herself to the floor, dodging a projectile as it whistled past.

She should've known, from the weirdness on the phone, and the evenness in Angel's voice, that something like this had happened. Angel wouldn't have answered his phone in the middle of a fight.

Angelus would.

Buffy scooped up the object she'd ducked. An arrow; more useless here than the stake she had jammed in her waistband, but at least it was a second weapon. She was going to need as many as she could get.

"Buff!" Angelus was grinning, and sounded way too happy to see her. The black amulet from the Sunnydale cave glinted around his neck. Just like in her vision. Had it changed him? Was it temporary?

Buffy got back to her feet. From this angle, off to one side from the open part of the room, she couldn't see anyone else in the lobby except for the body at Angelus' feet. It didn't look like anyone she knew, which was good, but she felt a pang for the loss of life, regardless. She should've come back here last night after her patrol. It might not have made any difference at all, but now she wouldn't know.

"Took you ages to get up here. I was starting to think you'd caught on and decided not to come," Angelus said.

Buffy moved forward, just enough to see the rest of the room. She couldn't figure out who had shot the arrow at her. Harmony was behind her desk, unarmed, looking caught between terrified and impressed. She thought that was Gunn and Wesley ducked behind the staircase platform leading to the labs.

No Lorne. No Illyria.

Spike was still back at his place—she should've called him on her way up, why was she only thinking of that now?

A small brunette she didn't recognise stood off to one side. The woman's eyes were on Angel, studying him and either ignorant or uncaring of the danger he posed.

"Would've been here quicker, but, reinforced steel doors can really slow a girl down," she replied, sliding her gaze back to Angel and dismissing the woman for the moment. She wasn't doing anything except for standing there and Angel didn't seem to have any interest in her either.

Angelus made a broad gesture with his arms. "Now that you're _finally_ here, we can start."

With a body already on the floor, that didn't sound too promising.

"Surprised you didn't skip town as soon as you got free," Buffy commented. "Or at least leave the building." She took a few steps forward as she spoke, trying to catch either Wesley or Gunn's eye. She didn't doubt their fighting skills—much—but getting the civilians out of here topped her priority list. If she could keep herself between Angelus and the stairwell, she'd be able to give them enough time to get the hell out of here.

Angelus made a chiding noise. "Think about that for a minute, Buff. Why would I leave?"

"To stop me from kicking your ass?" she suggested. Wesley glanced at her and she managed to meet his eyes. She tilted her head behind her, not too worried that Angel knew exactly what she was doing.

He was laughing, anyway. Hard. "So that we can get this part over with," he said, "This is your chance to give up quietly, blah, blah, blah."

Buffy didn't bother responding. Instead, she crossed her arms and waited for him to get to the point, watching out of the corner of her eye for movement from Wesley and Gunn. They hadn't budged. They were going to get themselves killed.

"Can't say I didn't expect that reaction," Angel said.

"You must be Eve," Buffy said, rethinking her dismissal of the brunette and cutting across Angel before he could start monologing their ears off.

Eve gave a slow smile and a shallow nod. She looked pleased, no doubt because her evil organization finally had an evil CEO to go along with it. And, of course, therein lay why Angelus hadn't already skipped town—he'd stepped into a load of power that he wouldn't be afraid to put to use. What had Angel said about his play to get Wolfram and Hart's trust so he could take them down? She should've made him tell her that plan in more detail; it could've helped her now.

Instead, she had one shot, right now, at taking him down.

All well and good if she had been _prepared_ for this.


	39. Chapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Buffy felt, dimly, like there should have been more going through her mind than there was. Maybe she was still too spent from her near-breakdown the day before, but she didn't feel much at all. The crash of emotions she could remember from the last time she'd been face-to-face with Angelus was absent. The frantic 'do-I-don't-I' thoughts, made more frenzied by the pressure of an immanent apocalypse, too, were missing. Numb might not have been the most accurate word for what she felt, but it wasn't too far off, either.

Part of her brain told her to take off, regroup, figure out what had turned Angel—if it had been anything other than the amulet, anyway, which she doubted—and turn him back if it was reversible. Another part insisted that she had an opportunity here that she had to take. That part took the room into consideration: recalling distances, assessing threats, and contemplating the circular, cordoned off area in the middle of the lobby between her and Angel, ready for anything. That part of her didn't care that she only had an arrow and a stake as weapons, because it knew they were enough—knew _she_ was enough.

Angelus made the decision for her. He skirted the circle. She moved in the opposite direction, keeping it between them. The floor between them was still marred with the charring from when she'd entered, the area kept off limits because of a weird energy that had stayed there—at least according to Wolfram and Hart's shamans. Weirder and weirder things had been happening whenever someone walked across it—the demon duck incident not the weirdest in the least—and eventually it had been made off limits altogether because no one had been able to diffuse the energy contained within it. It wasn't safe to assume Angelus wouldn't try to cross it, but at least it was giving him pause.

"You were waiting for me. Why?" she asked.

"Thought we could have some fun," He kept moving. She stopped when moving any further would cause her to lose sight of Harmony, even if the blonde wasn't doing much but watching Angelus, a little slack jawed.

She realised, too late, that he'd circled counter-clockwise on purpose. He'd known she'd lend weight to Harmony's presence, and she'd effectively boxed herself in. Wall close behind her, Harmony off to one side, the circle in front of her, and Angelus not too far off on the other side, if still slightly blocked by the rope marking out the circle's curve.

"I don't think our definitions of 'fun' even exist in the same ballpark," Buffy commented. She made the choice, stepping so she had more room to move, but losing the peripheral view of Harmony.

Angelus wore a bored looking smirk and a calculating glint in his eye. She wondered briefly, stupidly, how high on his priority list killing her was. Had he told her to come up here only to reveal that he was around, or…?

_'Not a question, Buffy. He wants you dead,' _she reminded herself. Even if he only wanted her dead because she would inevitably put a big snag in whatever plans he made, he still wanted her dead. It would be good for her to remember that.

"I can think of a couple easy remedies for that, bring you right around to my point of view," Angelus said, running his tongue along a fang as though she needed the imagery. "How'd you like to come over to the dark side again, Buff? I could make cookies…"

"Boss?" Harmony called from behind her, saving Buffy having to come up with an immediate response through her revulsion—and her desire to burst out laughing.

Angelus' expression became faintly exasperated, and more than a little annoyed. "_What_, Harmony?" he growled. He didn't look at the other vampire, eyes instead remaining locked with Buffy's.

They'd stopped circling again, leaving Buffy in the unpleasant position of feeling sandwiched between Harmony's desk and the charred carpet circle. Past Angel, Buffy could see Wesley and Gunn moving, but the staircase blocked them enough that she couldn't tell exactly _what_ they were doing.

What they _weren't_ doing was running like hell for the exit.

The end of a gun barrel poked over the edge of the platform, Wesley's forehead and eyes just visible as he sighted down the rifle. Just what this scenario _didn't_ need—another variable.

Harmony's eyes were locked on the rifle, and she pointed wordlessly toward it once she had Angelus' attention. He didn't turn to look. If he knew there was a gun pointed at his back, he didn't care. Did he think Wesley wouldn't fire?

Angelus moved again. He stepped forward, into the circle, knocking one of the short cordon supports over with a push. The two nearest it tumbled over as well, pulled by the cable connecting them. He moved fast enough that if she hadn't been watching for it, and if the barriers hadn't hindered him, he would've reached her before she could really follow what he was doing.

Buffy threw up an arm. Deflected the punch heading toward her cheek. Kicked out, trying to get to the side so she didn't get pinned against Harmony's desk. A few steps took her just far enough to vault, half running, over the last corner of it and into the more open corridor leading away from the foyer.

The _'crack'_ of a shot and she and Angelus both ducked their heads a fraction, recovering when a terrified shriek from Harmony let them know how wide the bullet had flown. They resumed exchanging blows, neither losing ground now that they had space enough to move, but neither gaining a leg up, either.

Right hook, blocked. A sweep of her left foot, jumped over. Feint right, and he was there mirroring her, expecting the real blow when it came.

Wearing a wild grin, he fell back, far enough from her reach—and his posture changing enough from 'sparring'—that she didn't advance. Laughter lurked in his eyes. Laughter made malevolent, insane, by his eyes being brown and soulless and evil.

"This is so much more fun than it used to be," Angelus said. "I'm starting to think killing Slayers young isn't the way to go. Who'd've thought the whole damn demon world had been doing it wrong for so long?"

Oh, great. Back to the talking.

"You're not nearly charismatic enough to change anyone's mind," Buffy said.

A dramatic slapping of his hand over his heart, like she'd actually offended him. "Buff, I'm hurt!"

"No, but you will be," she replied, noticing when he dropped his hand again that his amulet was glinting. Wary, her gaze lingered on it long enough for Angel to notice. He glanced downward, looking back at her a moment later with a smile.

"Not my usual style, but I think it suits me," he said, disregarding her threat.

The amulet still sparkled, looking different on Angelus than it ever had on Fake Angel. Buffy couldn't quite figure out what it was about it. Something was off.

She could figure out what, later.

Another shot went whizzing wide of them. An arrow came hurtling from the same direction, and Angelus pivoted and grabbed it from the air with a growl.

Buffy sprung forward in the moment his back was turned, hand outstretched, not one hundred percent sure what she thought she was doing but reaching for Angel all the same. The amulet. The amulet had to be the key to all of this. How exactly she was going to manage to wrestle it off of Angelus she wasn't quite sure yet, but she'd certainly try.

She leapt and Angelus spun, catching her across the shoulder with his fist. She fell back, her arm burning where the tip of the arrow he was holding had torn through her shirt and grazed the skin beneath. She rolled the shoulder, glancing down quickly to check the depth of the cut.

"Harmony!" Angelus roared, his gaze locked on Buffy again as they returned to exchanging blows.

"Boss?" Harmony trilled, sounding terrified.

Buffy managed to use Angelus' own momentum to throw him into the nearest wall. He crashed through the lower half of the flimsy wood veneer, remaining still for a fraction of a second, apparently making sure he hadn't been stabbed anywhere, before getting back to his feet. He snarled at her, game face on.

"Not having so much fun anymore, huh?" Buffy asked.

"Deal with those two!" he said, half looking back over his shoulder at Harmony.

Buffy crashed through the wall into Angel's office a moment later, arms covering her head to protect it from the rain of glass. She hadn't seen him move. She'd been watching, and despite feeling him pick her up and throw her, she _hadn't seen him move_.

"You know, I'm still enjoying this," he said, kicking aside one of the window beams and widening the Buffy-sized hole so he could step through.

Buffy rolled deeper into the office and regained her feet. Picking a couple of longer shards of glass from her arms, she regarded Angelus carefully. He stood twirling the arrow he was holding, a small cut across the ridge on his forehead the only obvious sign he'd just broken a wall with his body. His amulet sparkled around his neck, and it was suddenly urgent that she kept him away from the weapon display behind the desk.

She was _not_ going to get her ass handed to her by Angelus. That was _not_ happening today.

Promise to herself strengthening her resolve—even if her plan didn't extend far beyond 'get the amulet off of Angelus and don't let anyone die'—Buffy stepped forward again. She sidestepped to put herself between him and the desk, aiming to both drive him back through the hole in the glass and into the lobby, and keep him from getting his hands on something else he could use against her.

They returned to parrying each other's blows, Angelus making a marked effort to damage the arm he'd already nicked. He slashed at her with the arrow, Buffy ducking or dodging around each swing. Her swings changed focus, trying to disarm him instead of grabbing for the amulet.

Realising how ridiculous she must look—never mind how she felt—Buffy pulled the stake from her waistband.

"You don't actually think you have the balls to use that on me, do you?" Angelus asked.

Buffy's gaze flickered to the stake, fingers flexing, adjusting her grip.

"Derailing 'cause you think I will?"

He smiled, as if happy she'd picked up on the tactic. Then he quickly ducked out of the way of the stake, slipping back through the hole in the glass. Buffy adjusted her momentum so she wouldn't go flying through it again, and followed.

"This isn't the same as sticking me to a statue with a sword, sweetheart. Stab me with that thing and I'm not coming back."

"I'm not particularly fond of you, so that's not really a problem for me," she replied, slashing out again. He parried with his arrow. She broke it, bringing her wrist down hard on the shaft.

Buffy was vaguely aware that the fighting was taking them back toward the charred section of the lobby floor. She was more aware that her amulet felt warm against her skin, and that the sparkle in Angel's had built to more of a glow.

"Liar," Angelus said, his voice light, a smirk teasing at the corners of his lips.

"Really. I think the whole _world_ could do without _you,_" she said, and leapt forward, stake in one hand, the other reaching, grasping for the amulet's chain.

A surprised noise from Angelus as her fingers managed to graze the stone around his neck before he shoved her away. She fell and somersaulted, starting to rise at the end of the roll, moving slowly, feeling stiff.

She noticed the glow spreading across her from below before she could really wonder if she'd hurt something. Heard Angelus shout and saw him stagger backward from the corner of her eyes.

And then the familiar feeling of getting dragged off somewhere she had no interest going surrounded her, and Wolfram and Hart vanished.

* * *

><p><em>You all now know how embarrassingly long it takes me to write an action scene. Sorry for the delay!<em>


	40. Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty

Buffy's relief at opening her eyes to see the Powers' dimension was short lived. The vibrations of heavy footfalls raced toward her and Buffy, still hot from her fight with Angelus, sprang to her feet. Her fist flew, catching the hulking form across the mouth before he could do anything to deflect the blow.

He caught her other fist, holding her arm out away from him. His lips were moving, but the rushing in her ears from moving too soon after travelling through time and space made it impossible for her to hear what he was saying. Probably mocking her; hopefully just as confused at being pulled here as she was.

He'd deflected another of her blows before she realised he was only maintaining his defence, and not doing anything to fight back. She breathed in long through her nose, her shoulders dropping, and all at once he released her hand and his words reached her ears.

"…Not him. I'm not him." The words had a patterned rhythm that suggested it was all he'd been saying, over and over again until he got through to her.

Fake Angel. Not Angelus. Fake Angel.

Angelus wasn't here—she'd left him behind at Wolfram and Hart.

The avatar didn't react fast enough to stop her from splitting open his lip.

"This is all some big game for you, isn't it?" she asked. She lunged at him and he backed up, forcing her to jerk to a stop or fall when her jab came up short.

"Buffy," he said, holding his hands out in front of him, palms facing her. Beseeching.

She ignored him. Maybe he was a demi-god and an agent of the Powers and she couldn't slay him because of those reasons and more, but she could beat him up. It wouldn't solve any problems, but maybe she'd finally earn some respect, some recognition beyond being a tool.

He stepped back again and again as she came at him, until eventually he couldn't back up any longer and she had him trapped against a wall.

He hadn't made any attempt at delivering a blow, had only defended against hers without lashing back out. At least it had kept him from talking, though, had stopped him from trying to rationalise and explain away his reason for dragging her here _this_ time. And she'd postponed the delivery of any further orders he wanted to give her.

After all, time didn't pass normally here. So maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to get back to her world _before_ Angel became Angelus. She could stop him from putting on that amulet, or whatever. She could make sure she was watching and something different would happen. He'd stay Angel.

Never mind that she'd been told repeatedly there wasn't any way of changing events she'd already experienced.

"Are you finished?" The avatar asked quietly.

She'd unclenched her fists, dropped her shoulders, practically deflated, but she pressed her lips together, a stubborn set to her jaw, and took a couple of steps back to give him room.

"Deliver your orders from the tweed-clad guys in the sky and let me get back to what I was doing."

He shook his head. "Buffy. We weren't responsible for bringing you here this time. We don't know _how_ you got here."

Caught off guard, she focused her wandering attention back on Fake Angel. "What?"

She met his eyes, finding an emotion there she didn't like. He was confused. And if he was confused by the amulet transporting her here, apparently unbidden—and definitely without her wanting to—then she didn't want to know what had caused it to happen.

Which meant she definitely needed to know everything and anything that might have caused it. Or at least the most likely culprits.

"For someone who can see all of time and space, you really never know what's going on, do you?"

The avatar bowed his head, looking down at his hands. He didn't say anything for a long moment, then, "Something's gone wrong."

"Oh, well, at least now I know you're not sadistic enough to have planned this," Buffy bit out. "Look at me."

He did, and it was only when he lifted his head that she really noticed the absence of the amulet around his neck. Angel had it, of course, and she knew that, but Fake Angel somehow seemed less... powerful, maybe, with it missing.

"'Something's gone wrong' _where?"_ Buffy asked.

He hesitated. "We don't know."

"Try again," she snapped.

"Your arrival at Wolfram and Hart created complications we couldn't have predicted."

There he went again with the passing of the blame, pretending the Powers had no idea what was going on even though he wasn't fooling anyone. She'd be happy when this was all over.

"Complications," she repeated, thinking of quite a few of _those._ "You _sent _me there."

He nodded. Just once, and tersely, as though he didn't want to be reminded.

"We…" he hesitated, cringing, like he didn't like what he was about to say. "_Underestimated_ the extent of the hold Wolfram and Hart have in Los Angeles."

If possible, Buffy's expression soured further. She didn't want to listen to this. "You got cocky," she said, speaking over whatever else he'd been about to say. "You got your hands on this great new toy that started performing better than you ever expected, and you figured you were in the clear. Never mind communicating. Never mind telling me what I was supposed to be doing. You were going to win, because how could the other side possibly have anything to counter something they couldn't see coming?"

She looked over at the Balance mosaic on the wall. The dark side still surged against the light. There'd been no change, or if there had, it was for the worse.

"And now here we are."

The avatar's head was bowed. "You should be able to return Angelus to Angel."

"Tell me what I have to do."

* * *

><p>Buffy stepped back into her own world with a jolt, like she'd underestimated the height of a stair and half fallen down it. Not her smoothest landing, but her audience—made up of Gunn, Wesley and Spike—didn't seem to have noticed.<p>

"How long was I gone?" she asked, gaze flicking over Gunn and Wesley. They stood in Spike's kitchen, looking little worse for the wear after their showdown with Angelus.

"About an hour," Wesley replied.

Buffy nodded. Not bad. Jumping back in immediately at the point she'd been pulled out hadn't seemed like the best idea—Fake Angel had agreed. Better to use the exit to her advantage, regroup now that there was something like a plan forming in her head. "Status on Angel?"

"Still evil," Spike offered.

"Do we have anything _other_ than that?"

"We booked it outta there in the confusion after you disappeared," Gunn said. "Building's still on lockdown, but we got out where you'd come in."

So, no.

"Buffy."

She looked at Wesley, not liking the tone he'd prompted her with. _Knowing_ she wasn't going to like the next words out of his mouth.

"Would you mind telling us what happened? With Angel?"

Her eyebrows crept up her forehead. "Accusing me of something, Wes?" she asked, crossing to the sink. She pushed the torn part of her sleeve aside to get a good look at the cut on her shoulder, flaking some of the dried blood off from the skin around it with a fingernail.

"The more we know about what's happened here, the more informed our decisions moving forward will be, and I don't think I have to remind you of your history with Angel, Buffy."

Buffy wet a dishtowel and pressed it to her shoulder, pulling it back a couple of times to look at where the scab had formed, cleaning off the blood.

"If you slept with—"

She spun, throwing the towel down on the counter with a wet smack. "Everyone in this room knows what you're implying. You don't have to spell it out."

"You were the last to see Angel before—"

"He told me to stay. At. Spike's." She bit out. She grabbed up the towel again and refolded it, wiping a clean part down her arm, cringing when it snagged on embedded shards that she'd missed. "And yes, Wesley, he was clearly planning for something that he knew was going to go wrong, but it sure as hell wasn't resuming a relationship with me."

Clatters punctured the uncertain silence that followed, as she dug through the cupboard under the sink for a first aid kit.

"Okay, then what happened to Angel, if he didn't hit perfect happiness?" Gunn asked.

First aid kit found and a pair of tweezers in hand, antiseptic nearby on the counter, Buffy turned her attention to the glass in her arm.

"The PTB happened," Spike said, when she didn't respond. "Isn't that the deal? Where Angel's involved, the Powers're probably behind it."

"Having Angelus around can't help the Powers," Gunn said.

"They screwed up," Buffy said shortly. "And we get to fix it."

"You wanna call Red? Got a phone around here somewhere," Spike said. Buffy shook her head.

"We've got this one. I don't think Will could help, even if she wasn't in Scotland."

"You have a plan?"

She looked at Wesley. "You and Gunn are going to make sure he doesn't have a chance to go after anyone. I want Nina and anyone else Angel might've been friends with to know what's going on, and to be taken somewhere safe. If they don't know what he is, make up some excuse, or just _tell_ them."

"What, you're cutting us out of the action?" Gunn asked.

She held his gaze as she pulled a shard from her arm. "That's exactly what I'm doing."

"You may be the Slayer, but this isn't your turf to slay on!"

Wesley added, "Buffy, if Angelus is going to be working from within Wolfram and Hart's walls, then I would say you need us more than ever. Gunn and I are familiar with the resources at his command. You aren't."

"Pretty sure I'll figure those out as I go along," she replied, dabbing antiseptic on a couple of newly bleeding cuts. "Neither of you can listen to orders. You're not fighting with me."

"And Spike—"

"We're talking about the two of you, not Spike," she said automatically. "You're not helping your case, Gunn."

"You're not Queen here just because Angel's outta commission. You're not boss, Buffy. We've dealt with Angelus before, and we've got the methods to do it again."

She took in a long breath through her nose. "Do what you want. You want to call up Faith again? Go for it. I'll even give you Willow's private line if you think she'll be of help. But I'm not going anywhere with you at my back, because I don't know either of you well enough to have you there."

A pause while she dug out the last bit of glass from her left arm.

"That's fair," Wesley said.

Okay, unexpected support from that corner, considering they'd just finished insulting one another. Caught off guard, she looked at him.

"We don't have to be doing the same things all of the time, but if we're ultimately working toward the same goal, it would be beneficial for us to stay in contact. Rather than being cut off from one another completely. I imagine you have a plan, Buffy?"

She set the tweezers down and leaned up against the counter, looking over the three in the room and juggling her conversation with the avatar in her head. Plan? No. Vague idea of what she needed to do to re-ensoul Angel? Yes. Sort of.

"According to the Powers, Angel's soul is still present," she said. "Which is good for us, means we don't have to try and find one of those orb-y things or do a big ritual."

"Then why is he evil?" Gunn asked.

"Getting there. The Powers screwed things up when they sent me here. Turns out that big, unfixable ruined part of the floor is some sort of crack in the wall between our dimension and all the other ones. Only instead of a little draught coming in, energy's been seeping in and messing with the amulets—both mine and Angel's."

Wesley opened his mouth to speak. She met his eyes, watching him steadily until he closed it.

"Angel had some plan that was supposed to make the Senior Partners think he'd gone over to their side, and the amulet we went and found in Sunnydale was supposed to help him do it. The avatar said it was just supposed to hide his soul, to make it so that he could play Angelus without anyone smelling the soul and figuring out it was an act.

"But because the Wolfram and Hart building is _evil_, and the crack the Powers left compromised all of the energies, the magics in the amulet were changed."

"Angel put on the amulet and it created a disconnect between his mind and his soul, instead of simply masking it, thus allowing Angelus to rise," Wesley said.

She nodded.

"So, what, we tie him up and take off the amulet? Smash it? Should solve that, right?"

"It's supposed to be that easy," Buffy replied. But the Powers had been wrong before. _Way_ wrong.

Fake Angel had eventually explained to her what the Powers suspected had happened to cause Angel's soul to disappear. There still wasn't any explanation for why she'd appeared back in their dimension without activating her amulet, or being dragged back there. The avatar didn't even think—given the state of corruption in the amulets—that she would be able to repeat the journey. She was strictly this-world Buffy, now, and that, at least, was something she could be content with.

"You don't think it will be," Wesley said.

"It never is," Buffy replied with a shake of her head.

Spike stood up. "So, we storm the gates, beat up Angel and smash up some priceless, irreplaceable magic stuff. Good plan. Let's go, pet."

He was humouring her. It was a terrible plan with too much room for error, based entirely on a theory of how they'd gotten into this mess in the first place—and it was going to have to do because they didn't have anything else.

Wesley pushed off from where he'd been leaning against the wall and picked up his rifle. He nodded to Buffy. "Gunn and I will notify anyone we think Angelus might hunt down. It would be wise of the two of you to not stay in one place for long, particularly not here."

"Less with the warnings, more with the town crier-ing," Spike said. Buffy looked away, busying herself with cleaning up the counter to hide her smirk.

"Try not to keep us too far out of the loop, okay?" Gunn said as the two of them headed out. "Angel's big with the issues, but he's not a bad guy."

"Killing him's not in the plan, but it will be if he gets to someone before you do because you're too busy talking," Buffy said.

Sharing a look—good thing she wasn't trying to make any friends here—they left.

* * *

><p><em>Hello all, hopefully you didn't forget too much of what was going on!<em>


	41. Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty-One

"So, what do you know that you didn't tell them?" Spike asked. Buffy looked around at him, eyebrows up, eyes wide, overplaying her feigned surprise at the question. Then she returned to dressing the wound on her shoulder.

"This plan's not going to work."

"Well, yeah," Spike said. "Was holding out on asking you to fill in the details until after they'd left." He paused. "There are details, right?"

Buffy cringed. "Not so much. You know me. Details come later. Way later. On-the-spot later."

The smirk on Spike's face betrayed his attempt to hide that he was laughing at her. "If I didn't know you could take him, I think I might be worried right now. Gunn and Wesley sure are."

Buffy scowled. Angel's friends were going to get in her way if she couldn't think of enough things to keep them out of it. "We need to get moving," she said. "Before he comes up with something that makes our victory a little less certain."

As though that wasn't already the case. She could take Angel—she'd done it before, and she'd only gotten better since then. It was his Wolfram and Hart connections that made her worry. Wesley had been right in that, at least. She had no idea what kind of thing Angel might have access to. Of course, Wesley had also been wrong in his assumption that _he_ had any idea of the full extent of Angelus' resources.

Angelus would be in with the Senior Partners, now, or with whatever related faction he'd been aiming for. She needed to assume that. She needed to assume that she wasn't just dealing with Angelus, wasn't just dealing with someone she was familiar with, wasn't even only dealing with a vampire. This was bigger, and she didn't think that Gunn and Wesley realised that—all the more reason for them to be as distanced from this as she could get them.

"Ready when you are."

She gave the stake he was twirling a pointed look.

"You're bringing one!" Spike protested.

"Two," she replied, becoming conscious of the familiar press of the wood in her waistband. She snatched the one he was holding and tucked it in beside hers. "And you don't need one."

Spike looked put out for a moment, before a banging at the door brought their attention around to it. The stake she'd put away was back in Buffy's hand and held at the ready up by her ear in a flash. Her eyes tracked Spike as he moved over to the door.

"Yeah?" he called.

"It's Lorne, sugarplums. The big bad wolf hasn't come huffing and puffing, yet."

Buffy lowered her arm, still holding her stake loosely, as Spike opened the door and backed off. Lorne stepped into the room, ducking his head under the low lintel so that his horns didn't get caught on it. His gaze swept over the two of them, and if he weren't green, Buffy thought he might be faintly pink.

"Had some advice for the two of you, before you go after him. Don't."

Buffy slid her stake back into its place. "If you know someone more qualified for the job, send her over and we'll review her resume."

Lorne gave a feeble smile. Okay, it had been a lame quip.

"Buffy, honey, I don't doubt your ability to kick his ass. I don't even doubt your willingness to, because our Angel has an enormous capacity to be a jerk to the people he loves, and paying him back in kind would probably feel pretty good. Am I right?"

Spike had a knowing look trained on her, and Buffy groaned. "What's your point, Lorne?" she asked, as diplomatically as she could manage even though he was holding them up and she needed to get out of here before it was anywhere close to sundown so that she didn't have to deal with a roaming-the-streets Angelus.

Though, since he had access to an army of cars with necro-tempered glass windows, trying to keep the fight to daytime hours might be a pointless exercise.

Lorne dropped down onto the couch on the opposite end from where Spike'd sat back down, vibrant suit making him look way more out of place than the green skin and horns ever could in the Spartan, underground apartment.

"My point, kids, is that even as absent as I've been, bereavement leave and all, I should'a seen this one coming, and I didn't. There've been a lotta big things going down lately that I haven't been clued into. Total radio silence. And maybe I should take that as a hint to take off and get outta the way of the big swingers—go back to being an entertainer, stick to what I'm good at, whatever."

"Angel's no canary, Lorne," Spike said. "None of us have exactly been singing our little hearts out."

"I know, and maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but this whole thing is throwing big neon danger signs at me, and I think, for the moment, it'd be better to just leave well enough alone. And 'well enough,' here, is Angelus and Wolfram and Hart."

"You can stay away, Lorne," Buffy said. "You're being smarter about this than Gunn and Wesley are. My spot's in the middle of the chaos, though. I'm the Slayer. I don't have any other choice. And anyway," she said, raising her voice because both Lorne _and_ Spike looked like they had something to add. "Thanks to my teleportation act in our last bout, I have to save face."

Because she just _knew_ Angelus was going to accuse her of running off on purpose.

Lorne started looking distressed, though he had to have known coming in here that he wouldn't manage to talk her out of going after Angelus. She was having a hard time even grasping what he was asking—she was the Slayer. Evil causing trouble was sort of what she was made for.

"Buffy will sing for you if it'll make you feel better about her chances," Spike said.

Buffy will… _what?_

She spun on him, eyes going wide. "Buffy won't."

Spike waved her off. "Just a couple of lines of 'Twinkle, Twinkle' or something. Doesn't have to be some big production. You sing something, Lorne sees you kicking Angelus' ass, we take off and make it happen."

He could say it as matter-of-factly as he wanted—his smirk belied how entertaining he found the prospect. Lorne looked more hopeful than he had a moment before.

Buffy groaned. "And if Lorne sees me _losing?"_

"How 'bout I don't tell you what I see, good or bad, unless I have some pointers to pass on?" Lorne suggested. "I don't want to be the one that damns our side, but I don't want to get your hopes up, either. The future's a shaky thing."

Didn't she know it.

Staring up at the ceiling, wondering why she was humouring them, Buffy sang.

_"Three blind mice, three blind mice—"_

"Whoa, what'd you see?"

Spike sounded alarmed, and Buffy's attention turned to Lorne. His eyes were wide, mouth agape, and for a moment she thought he was going to tell them what he'd seen. He recovered, though, shaking his head and giving them a forced smile.

"That was enough?" Buffy asked.

Lorne nodded. "Seen more than I needed to, even," he said, and stood. One of his hands was clenched a bit, though he otherwise didn't look too fazed. "I didn't get any clues that would be of any use to you, but be ready for something big, okay? Bigger than you're thinking. Really, really big."

_'Two blind mice,'_ she thought wryly.

"We'll be ready," Buffy said. "Thanks, Lorne. You have somewhere Angel-proof to go?"

He half-nodded, half-bowed. "Have a few favours I can call in. I'll be back when this all blows over." He hesitated. "Good luck, you two. Sorry for taking off in the middle of the mess, but I'm no fighter." He sounded so grim, and put out. Buffy smiled.

"Everyone has their role, and you've done yours," she said. "Can't ask more of you than that."

His smile was genuine this time, open and relieved. "I'll see myself out. Get him back, Buffykins, so that we can yell at him for his hot-headed plans together."

She laughed as he left, sobered up when she caught sight of Spike's worried expression.

"Something big," he murmured.

"The Senior Partners probably have something cooked up. We're not going to get to Angelus in time to stop it," she replied. That confirmed her theory about the amulets, at least. Getting it off of Angelus and back into her possession would be all well and good, but she was also going to have to do something to make his soul realise that the magic wasn't still working on it.

Not something she looked forward to. It meant more magic, when her own amulet had been corrupted, too, and wasn't likely to work as it was supposed to. Of course, given her prowess with it maybe that wouldn't make any difference at all anyway. She could blunder her way through it, the same way she'd been doing all along, right?

"You sound so positive," he replied. He had the fridge open, and stood with his head nearly inside of it, apparently deciding between blood and beer.

"Better than assuming everything's going to go right, for once. Unpredictableness is bad, but something we're just going to have to deal with. It's not the first time and it's definitely not going to be the last."

Spike settled on beer. "Night—_Day_ on the town before we go rushing to our painful, painful deaths?"

"We're not going to die. Fate's more creative than that."

"I'm not sure I'd prefer disfiguration and horrible torture over death, you know."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "If you want to stay behind you're more than welcome to."

He downed the beer. "Nah, let's go. I don't come with you, you'll probably have to rescue me or something. Wouldn't want to divert you from your goal."

"I wouldn't be rescuing you first," she said. "Since fixing Angel would be the easier solution."

A mock hurt look from Spike. "Not very nice of you, is it?"

She nodded at the door. "Let's go, before we have to rescue half of L.A."

-8-

They'd made it a block from Spike's place before Buffy stopped, senses picking up something enough out of the ordinary that bumps had started to rise on her arms and the back of her neck prickled. She looked at Spike, eyes asking if he sensed the same thing she did. He shrugged, adjusted the blanket over his head, and pressed a little more deeply into the shadows cast by the buildings lining the streets.

"Baby vamp. What's got you freaked? Sun's still out, pet, we're not going to get jumped."

"You don't think maybe he," she shook her head. Even without finishing the statement, it sounded ridiculous. "Right. An army of new vamps isn't his style."

"Too soon, anyway," Spike replied. "Wouldn't rise until at least nightfall. You _are_ spooked, forgetting that."

The shadow of a tree's dense foliage bridged the gap between the next two buildings and fell over the sidewalk, and Spike used its coverage to stand in front of her so that she had to stop walking.

"I'm not spooked. There's something here."

"Uh, some_one_, thank you."

They groaned in unison at the familiar voice. Another interruption, and this one way less than welcome. At least Gunn and Wesley and Lorne had been friendly, if annoying, and people they knew were rooting for them and fighting on their side.

Harmony?

Not so much.

* * *

><p><em>Oh gosh, the feedback on this chapter has been sitting in my inbox waiting for me to go through the draft and then post it for weeks. So sorry, guys, I kept forgetting!<em>


	42. Chapter Forty Two

Chapter Forty-Two

"What're you doing here, Harm?" Spike asked, jamming his hands in his pockets and turning to face the alley that Harmony stepped out of. She had her hands over her head and kept peering upward, through her fingers, as if her hands were the only thing holding the sun off of her, or the buildings whose shadows were keeping her safe were suddenly going to collapse and leave her to the sun's mercy.

"I was looking for _you_," she said. She sounded put out that they hadn't jumped to that conclusion, or maybe that they hadn't been happy to see her. She also had Buffy fixed with a squinty-eyed, mouth slightly open look, though that was likely because a couple hours prior she'd vanished into thin air in front of her.

"Okay, _why?_" Spike asked.

Harmony's bottom lip jutted out. "Everything at the office is all tense and gross and no one knows what's going on because Angel's all different now. So I took an extended lunch and left. It's not like he's going to notice I'm gone, anyway."

Spike had a hand to his face, looking exasperated. "You want a tip for dealing with Angelus, Harm? Now that you've left, stay far away."

Harmony made a face. "Hello, I still have to go to work," she said. "It's not like I'm not going back later. I'm just letting him make whatever changes he needs to make, and then when I get back I'll adjust."

"That's very big of you, Harm, but it doesn't explain why you were looking for _us_."

"You. I was looking for you. Why would I be looking for _her?"_

Buffy pressed her lips together to keep from bursting out laughing and studiously kept her attention on the tree branches above them, pretending that she was giving them privacy for their conversation. Riveting as it was, she kept zoning out.

"Fine, you were looking for me. For what?"

"Are you going back to the office? 'Cause you know, if you were, I could show you the entrance that the employees are using to get in and out. You know, with the rest of the building being in lockdown and all. No one's seeing any clients today or anything, it's all totally messed up and everyone's going to be behind on their quotas and stuff."

"Is there a point to your rambling, Harmony?" Buffy asked, a snap in her voice. She did _not _want to listen to this anymore. Great, there were people getting comfortable with Angelus in charge already. Okay, a little important, since it meant that she and Spike were going to meet more resistance than she'd been predicting going back into the building and they would probably be human which could definitely pose a problem.

But they could have found that out themselves just as easily, and without Harmony holding them up in the middle of the street.

"Well, duh."

Buffy gave an exaggerated _'Well?'_ gesture.

Harmony bit her lip. "Let's walk back to the building together!" she suggested, and checked her watch. "I know I said that whole thing about taking a long lunch and all, but I really probably shouldn't. I'm Angel's right arm and stuff—" Spike snorted "—and he's really going to need me if he comes up against resistance, or wants some bodies removed or the carpet cleaners to be called or something."

"Tell us why you were looking for us and we'll think about it."

More lip biting. Spike peered in the nearest window, looking wholly bored, and not being of any help in getting anything out of Harmony. Not that Buffy actually thought Harmony had anything of any use to say, but maybe they could pick up more useful tidbits from her rambling.

_"_Spike. I was looking for Spike," she said. Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. Why were you looking for Spike, then?"

The question gave Harmony an excuse to give her a look that clearly read 'duh,' as she said, "Because Spike _knows_ Angel, and he knew him when he didn't have his soul, so if anyone's going to know what to expect about how the next few days are going to go, it's Spike."

Oh, of course, because no one else in town knew anything at all about Angelus.

"Let me tell you how the next couple days are going to go, Harmony. I am going to march into Wolfram and Hart right now, and I am going to fight whatever Angelus and the Senior Partners can throw at me. I am going to make Angel's body realise that his soul has not gone anywhere. And then I am going to remind Angel that he is not the only person in the world who is fighting on this side.

"I am going to make sure that he doesn't have any more room to get into trouble for at least a week. And then, only then, am I finally going to call my sister and let her know I'm still alive and not in any near death state, and I am going to get on a plane and fly back to Scotland where _my_ responsibilities are. _That_ is how the next couple days are going to go. Any questions?"

Spike applauded. Harmony, though, merely stared at her, eyes wide, and Buffy didn't have any doubt that everything she'd just said had gone in one ear and out of the other without being processed. It didn't matter. It felt good to get that off of her chest, and good to know that she actually did have more of a plan for the next couple of days than she thought that she had.

And even better, the end of all of this was within sight, so long as there weren't any more weird occurrences or travelling through other dimensions or missions for the Powers. She'd be happy to get rid of this amulet once and for all—whether or not that was an option, she was planning on making it one.

"I was asking Spike," Harmony reminded her in a stiff voice.

A soft, frustrated scream escaped Buffy and she pushed past them. They didn't have_ time_ for this. Harmony was just a huge waste of time, and the only thing she was good for was getting in the way.

She paused, and then she took off at a run. Getting in the way. If she needed a distraction and had Harmony hanging around, Harmony would be the first person she would send off to create a distraction. What was Angelus up to? Did she even want to know, at this point?

"Pet?" Spike called after her. Footsteps pounded for a moment, and then Spike swore. "Hey, it's bright back here, slow down!"

She turned around, stepping quickly backward, finding him through the glare of the sun setting. He was slapping a smouldering shoulder, scowling, Harmony hovering but still standing far enough away that she had no risk of catching fire herself.

She stopped walking, folded her arms over her chest.

Fire out, Spike straightened his jacket and started after her again, moving as quickly as he could while still ducking and looking up so that he didn't stray into any other patches of sun. He caught up a moment later.

"Why'd you take off? What's up?"

She peered over his shoulder at Harmony, who was slowly making her way up to them as well, 'eeping' and shrieking as she ducked around patches of sun. She stopped altogether when a gust of wind came through and shook around the patches of shadow she'd been hopping between.

"I'm worried he's using Harmony as a distraction, and I don't want to wait too long to find out what he's distracting us from."

Spike's brow furrowed. "Didn't think of that," he said. "Figured she was just being her annoying self, you know."

"Maybe," she said. "But I'm not dawdling to find out. Come on." She took off again, Spike right at her heels and Harmony dragging somewhere behind them.

* * *

><p>Silence sat, thick, heavy and ominous, over the outside of the Wolfram and Hart building when they approached. A very different picture from when Buffy had been here earlier today; not a soul loitering around, and there still wasn't anyone going in or out of the doors—which made sense given what Harmony had said about the office still being in lockdown.<p>

Harmony, who had disappeared altogether after following them for a couple of blocks, dragging her feet. Buffy wouldn't be surprised if she'd taken off to let Angelus know that they were on their way—for that matter, she expected it. And maybe she should have taken Harmony out of the picture altogether, but she suspected it would have little difference on the outcome either way, and if she staked Harmony, there'd be no one to show up every once in a while and almost kill her laughing.

So Harmony lived.

The door Buffy had broken down earlier hadn't been fixed. Hadn't even been taped off or put back into place. The building may have been locked down, but security clearly wasn't all that high on Angelus' priority list—or the lists of whomever in the office held that responsibility.

She and Spike scaled the first two flights quickly, testing the doors onto each floor as they went. All locked. They could have beaten their way into the floors. They would, if Spike's hearing happened to pick up any noise beyond the door that he thought they should check out—assuming the walls and doors weren't sound proofed, which she thought they might be.

In all likelihood, their destination—and target—was still the top office level, so that was where they were headed.

Between the fifth and sixth floors, Spike grabbed her arm and held on, pulling her to a stop. She glanced back at him askance. He wore a frown, attention focused on the stairs above them.

"You hear that?" he asked. She shook her head, and he motioned for her to stay, slipping past and starting up the stairs. About halfway up the next flight, he leaned over the railing and looked straight up, into the gap that ran up the middle of the stairwell. Moving his head back and forth and craning his neck, he peered upward, trying to see into the floors above.

Buffy opened her mouth to ask him what he'd heard, then stopped. A snuffling noise came from above them, and a booming sound like many pairs of feet bounding down the stairs.

"Dogs," Spike said.

"_Dogs?"_

Spike leapt from his stair down to her landing. Snarls reached her ears and two black dogs came tearing around the bend and into sight on the landing above. The dogs skidded to a stop when they saw her and Spike, still snarling, their lips drawn back and long, yellow teeth bared. One of them barked, a harsh, threatening sound that echoed in the stairwell.

Spike brought his fists up and Buffy pulled a stake from her waistband. Another bark from the same dog as before, and a growl from its partner.

_Three, two_…

The dogs launched down the stairs toward them. Buffy caught the one flying toward her in the ribs, sending it falling backward. It landed on its back on the stairs, scrambling around and sliding down before it had its feet under it, eyes flashing red. Any thoughts that they might be normal guard dogs—even racing down the stairwell in an office building—disappeared.

All teeth and fur, the dogs kept coming at them. Her fist caught the muzzle of one of the beasts, knocking its head to one side. A stinging sensation started on her knuckles, making her shake her hand and rub the back of her fingers against her pants. At the same time, she hopped backward, out of reach of the recovering dog.

"What are these things?" she demanded. She struck out with her stake; missed when the dog leapt back.

"Some sorta demon mutt?" Spike offered. He had his by the throat, pinned up against the wall. Saliva ran out of its mouth and dripped onto his sleeve. She followed his lead, cramming the stake back into her waistband. She reached for the dog, missed and almost had her fingers bitten, then managed to grab it on her second try. A snap came from beside her when Spike broke the dog's neck.

She did the same. Two thumps followed—the bodies hitting the floor when they dropped them.

"You think someone sent them down?" Spike asked, nudging one with the toe of his boot. Buffy gave the dogs a cursory study, scratching at still-stinging knuckles.

"Pretty safe assumption," she said. The itchy sensation getting the better of her, she looked down at the offending fingers. Cringing at the irritated skin, and more so at the swollen spots that looked like mild burns, Buffy forced herself to stop picking at her hand. The saliva on those things had not been friendly.

At least they were dead. She looked at Spike, catching him quickly averting his attention from her hand, and nodded at the stairs. They took off up them again.


	43. Chapter Forty Three

Chapter Forty-Three

To Buffy's great relief, they didn't encounter any more demon dogs—what Spike had taken to calling Hellhounds—for the remaining who-knew-how-many flights of stairs up to the story Angel's office was on. Not that she and Spike couldn't have taken out a couple more dogs, but they didn't need to be slowed down further.

If someone—Angelus—had really sent the creatures after them (and there were plenty of other people in the building would could have, even if only to get on Angel's good side), then they would know how easily the dogs had been dispatched. And could be sending something a lot tougher as a Hellhound-chaser.

Both of them figured it better to get to the top floor before that chaser arrived.

Without the care she'd taken the last time she'd climbed this staircase, Buffy yanked open the stairwell door and burst through it, stake drawn, body tight and ready for a fight. She stopped after a couple of steps, Spike running into her.

Angelus wasn't present and waiting for her as she'd fully been expecting. In fact, the entire lobby, from the shattered glass wall she'd been thrown through hours before (the damage to which looked untouched) to the floating staircase that led up to the other offices, was entirely void of people. Even Harmony was absent.

She shared a look with Spike, who also scanned the room, apparently as concerned by the emptiness as she was. Then he nodded toward the middle of the room, drawing her gaze around. Confused, it took her a moment to figure out what had caught his attention. The room didn't look any differently than it had a moment ago...

Wait. No different than a moment ago, maybe, but definitely different than it had this morning.

The barriers around the burnt out spot in the floor, the spot where the Avatar had said weird energies were coming in and infecting everything, had been replaced. Someone had deemed them more important, or maybe easier, to fix than the damage done in her and Angelus' brawl. But Spike didn't know those had ever fallen down, and that wasn't what had drawn his attention now.

No, what had drawn his attention—and what she should have noticed as soon as she'd burst through that door—was the colour of that circle of floor. Not charred carpet and scorched hardwood any longer, the area no longer resembled, well, anything. It was just black. Plain, solid black.

Buffy approached the distorted area with caution, creeping along and looking from side-to-side repeatedly in case someone was actually lurking around. Spike had her back, staying put at the stairwell door like she'd asked.

It wasn't until she stood right beside that Buffy realised what the void on the floor reminded her of. She'd seen it before—_created _it before, back in Acathla's Hell when she'd been trying to get Angel out and screwed up.

The realisation that someone, somehow, had opened up an entrance to a... what had Fake Angel called it? Nightmare Fold? Had Buffy jumping backward and away from the thing so she wouldn't fall forward into it.

"Buffy?" Spike called, sounding concerned. "What is that thing?"

She thought about lying to him, telling him that she didn't have a clue. Where a lie would get her, she wasn't too sure, but it didn't stop her from entertaining it—because she didn't know what to do now, and maybe if she pretended she had no idea what they were looking at, she wouldn't have to figure it out.

Spike had crossed the room and stood right behind her now, looking down at the hole in the floor. A drawn out sigh escaped from Buffy. She could entertain not doing anything about this as much as she wanted—she still had to do it.

"Pet?"

"Meet up with Wesley and Gunn whenever you can," she said, looking down at her amulet. It wasn't reacting to the hole, hadn't reacted at all to anything since before her latest trip to the Powers' dimension. Made sense, if what Fake Angel told the truth and its powers had gone all wonky. Still, if she needed to jump in there and save Angel from himself, it would be nice if all systems were go.

Spike was objecting. Big surprise.

"Spike I can't take you with me," she said, and reminded him of her 'I-was-a-vampire-in-an-alternate-universe' story. She didn't have any desire to go traipsing through one of these Nightmare thingys again—no desire at all, because not only was there a huge chance that she wouldn't be able to get out again, since apparently it had been a freak event that she'd ever done so the first time, but because there was a huge crisis going on _here_. _Now._

Though if the subject of that crisis currently resided in a different dimension, maybe that crisis had been downgraded to a major emergency.

"Don't see why this means I can't come," Spike said, sounding put out. Oh god, pouty vampires.

She dangled the amulet in front of him. "No plus-ones. You'll find the others when you get a chance?"

With a look that told her she'd later regret ever leaving him behind, he nodded.

Buffy ducked under the barricade around the hole, and, holding her breath, stepped in.

-8-

The sensation of falling wasn't unexpected, what with the entrance to the dimension being on the floor and all. She could've done without her tailbone smacking the ground as hard as it did, though. Grimacing, Buffy stood and rubbed the almost-certainly bruised spot, peering through the darkness around her as she did.

Would this be Angel's private hell, or Angelus'? Would there be a difference either way?

Would she be able to _tell_?

A cursory glance around told her that, no, just looking wasn't going to help her. She was in L.A.—that much was for sure. The skyscrapers surrounding her were familiar enough, the streets more abandoned than she was used to, but the street signs familiar in their layout. So, an Angel—or Angelus—generated Hell-A. He could be anywhere, especially given that she had no idea when he'd jumped into the dimension.

Or, for that matter, if he even had.

Given the lack of bumpies on her head, though, and absence of pointy teeth in her mouth, it was probably safe to assume that this, at least, wasn't _her_ Nightmare.

Leaving the matter of tracking down Angel. The avatar had never mentioned how large these dimensions could get, whether they were the same size as the real world, or were just generated depending on where the creator went and what they expected to see. Of course, he'd also mentioned she was the only person who'd ever escaped from one of them, so maybe the lack of knowledge could be excused.

That didn't change how useful it would have been to have, though.

Buffy went straight, in the direction she'd been facing when she landed. Going this way would eventually lead her to the wealthier, business area of town where Wolfram and Hart stood. If she didn't find Angel there, she could continue her search elsewhere, but it was as good a place as any to start.

-8-

The walk to Wolfram and Hart didn't take nearly as long as it should have, even given that she'd run at least half of it, worried that something might happen without her around to stop it. Proof, maybe, that the Nightmare Folds didn't necessarily represent the world as it was—or at least Angel's version of L.A. didn't mirror reality.

Whichever was the case, it only took a glance at the Wolfram and Hart tower to know she'd reached her destination. The building loomed above her, the streetlights around and leading up to it burnt out or flickering dimly in their final moments. There didn't seem to be any lights on, emergency or otherwise, in the building proper, either. The windows she could see lacked any sort of glow, rendering Wolfram and Hart a black monolith, only apparent above her because of the light it blocked—and the aura of evil it emitted.

The whole thing screamed evil, and soul intact or not, looked like an Angel-magnet.

The front doors being unlocked didn't surprise Buffy in the least. Nor did the vacant lobby. Lack of light sending her other senses into overdrive, she made her way deeper into the darkness of the building. A sound stopped her halfway to where she thought the elevators stood.

The noise hadn't been loud, and Buffy's ears stained to pick it up again; turning her head from side to side as though she might be able to pick up on it better if she were facing in the direction it had come from. No such luck.

Cursing herself for slacking at any sort of Slayer-skills related training in the past months, Buffy closed her eyes, blocking herself from making any attempts at straining to see through the pitch. Then she held her breath and listened.

There. The faintest sound of scraping, coming from behind the concierge's desk. Buffy took a couple steps in that direction, stopping just shy of the desk. That scraping noise again, then a soft sniffling sound, like whatever was back there was trying to figure out who or what she was through scent rather than standing up and trying to see through the dark.

"Angel?" she called, keeping her voice low. It didn't sound like the sniffing of an animal—or even really a vampire, for that matter—but Buffy wasn't inclined to believe that everything here necessary reflected things as they existed in the real world.

The sniffing stopped when she spoke. Then came the sound of shoes shuffling on carpet, and a thud and groan when something heavy—a person—hit the wall. "Buffy?"

Despite calling his name, despite knowing he was there, Buffy froze. The timbre of his voice left her unsure of whether Angel or Angelus sat behind that desk, the odd quake in it convincing her for a split second that he had to be Angel, then a more cautious part of her knowing it could be a trick.

Not that she couldn't take Angelus, but why get any closer to him and give him any more advantage than necessary?

Still, Buffy treaded around the desk, stopping at the end where she would've been able to see around to Angel if there were any light to see by. As it was, she could still sense him, whether or not her eyes were working.

"Buffy, where are we?"

Wasn't _that_ the million-dollar question? If _he_ didn't know…

Then again, other than knowing she'd been in a different place entirely, Buffy hadn't had a clue when she'd been wandering around alternate-Sunnydale. She could get them out of here. She _would_ get them out of here—even if it meant dealing with Angelus all over again once they got out.

Because this _had_ to be Angel. If Angelus was going to wander around in a world made up of the worst things his mind could come up with, his soul intact would be the first thing to get thrown into the mix. Maybe his mind was processing things differently here, and the inside of his head was all mashed up and confused—hers certainly had been, dealing with the demon—but outwardly, he was Angel. Angel, she could deal with.

She hoped.

Prompting him with his name, Buffy held out her hand, reaching until her fingers brushed his sleeve. His hand wrapped around hers and she guided them back to the centre of the lobby, facing toward the lighter wall where the glass doors glowed slightly from light somewhere in the distance.

"There're things in the building that I've never seen before. We need to get out of here," Angel murmured. His tight hold on her hand didn't waver; whatever the 'things' were that he'd seen, they'd scared him, and that wasn't going to do if they were going to get out of here.

"This way," she said, and let him follow, not returning any of the pressure he had on her hand. Encouraging him, even if only to the extent of comforting him, would only lead to—

"Buffy, look out!"


	44. Chapter Forty Four

Chapter Forty-Four

Buffy dove and somersaulted across the floor, wrist coming free of Angel's grip. Familiar snarls surrounded them, and Buffy came up out of her roll with her fist swinging, smacking the nearest Hellhound across the muzzle. It flew away from her with a yip. She sought out Angel, finding him wrestling a second hound down, with a third getting closer and working up the courage to launch itself onto his back.

A fourth dog blocked her attempt to run at the one Angel hadn't noticed. Buffy glanced around, hoping her count wasn't off. Four. Five. A small pack of them, all snarling and foaming, rabid.

One less, a crack from behind her said. She paced backward, keeping her eyes up, closing the space between her and Angel so nothing could sneak up on either of them from behind.

"You know anything about these things?" she asked. It was his hell, after all.

"I know they've been showing up since I got here," he grunted. He sounded in pain, an undercurrent in his voice suggesting it went deeper than any physical affliction. Like she had time or any willpower left to deal with his psychological issues right now. The dogs. Deal with the dogs.

Dogs that were showing up everywhere here and somehow slipping out into the Wolfram and Hart that was in the real world. Great. At least now she knew no one had been sending them after her and Spike.

At least they weren't any tougher here than they had been there. Despite there being a pack of them instead of just a duo, she and Angel dispatched them quickly enough.

She turned to him as the last one slumped from her grip and down the wall. "Are you evil?" Blunt, but she would get the same answer whether he was or not. She watched him with a careful gaze regardless, noting how the question made him slump, like he'd been expecting it but really hadn't wanted to hear it.

"No," he murmured. "Buffy—"

She shook her head with that settled. "We need to get out of here and I don't know if I can get both of us home."

The look he gave her had way too much confidence in her for her current comfort level. Not for the first time, it dawned on her just how easy Angel found it to give up and run away from his problems.

Maybe Fake Angel had thought her escape from the Nightmare Fold impossible because he had that particular Angel trait.

They were walking away from Wolfram and Hart, back to where Buffy had landed, when Angel spoke again. "You seem to know what's going on here."

Her snort caught in her throat, turning the disbelieving noise into a strangled, doubtful sound.

"At least more than I do," Angel amended.

"Not hard," she muttered. Silence followed—she kept moving forward, knowing he still trailed after her.

"Buffy, I didn't—I don't know—"

"You didn't lose your soul or you probably wouldn't have it here. I'm not telling you what's going on because I'm not giving Angelus ammo for when we get back to our world."

She looked up at him then, meeting the dark, inward look. It wasn't the first time she'd outright told him she didn't trust him—and it probably wouldn't be the last.

He didn't speak again for a while, and Buffy was too busy with her thoughts clamouring over one another, drowning each other out and vying for attention in a bid to be their best bet of getting home safely, that she didn't have the focus to, either.

"What do you mean, 'didn't lose'?" he asked finally, sounding like he'd been turning the statement over and over his head, mulling through it and trying to figure out what she'd meant. Buffy groaned.

"Later. I'll fill in all the missing pieces for you later," she said.

Buffy came to a stop in the middle of an intersection, looking ahead and behind them, and then left and right down the intersecting street. There weren't any vehicles in Angel's Nightmare Fold, hadn't been a single one since she'd arrived here. Weird, to say the least, but convenient. Streetlights surrounded the intersection, keeping it brightly lit. They'd have _some_ warning, at least, should anything come after them.

Hopefully Angel could hold off more Hellhounds on his own, while she worked the magics in the amulets and got them out of here. Maybe it would make him feel useful, or at least in control of _something_.

Angel stood with attention trained on her, not saying anything but with a crease between his brows that suggested he wanted to. Buffy didn't offer up any explanation, in part because she didn't even know if or how this was going to work, and in part because talking would just waste even more time. She fiddled with her amulet instead.

Had it flared when she dove in here? Had there been any reaction from the amulet at all? She hadn't paid enough attention to notice and now, in the dead silence that sat heavy throughout this place, Buffy wished she'd thought to.

Best to assume she could get them out of here, even against all the rational thought that screamed otherwise. Fake Angel said the amulets were tainted, unpredictable. He'd been wrong more than he'd been right. Could she assume he was wrong again?

Buffy hung onto that thought and watched her amulet begin to glow, the one around Angel's neck pulsing in response to it, glowing purple like an electric black light in the dark. It took Angel a moment to notice, and then his hand came up to hold the stone up so he could peer at it, frowning and looking at her over top of it.

"What…?" he breathed, as though he hadn't seen her manipulate the power of these things _multiple_ times since she'd arrived in L.A.

The amulets started pulsing in time and Buffy reached out to grab Angel's arm, the thought crossing her mind that she could end up escaping without him—even if she knew, though not from practice, that just holding on wouldn't help either way. Her hand landed in his instead, his fingers wrapping around hers, and both of the amulets glowed brighter.

Buffy closed her eyes against the glare, a rushing noise starting in her ears. It was working. It was working, it was working, it was….

She came to sometime later, not sure when she'd passed out. One hand remained tangled up in the chain of the amulet, the thin metal links digging into her fingers. She unwound them, looking around, trying to get her bearings. Easier said than done, since wherever she'd landed was recognisable as a disused, dimly lit office and nothing more.

Had she done it? If she'd managed to bring them back through, this would be Wolfram and Hart in her dimension—at least, probably. If not, she could be anywhere. Anywhere except for the Wolfram and Hart in the Nightmare Fold she'd found Angel, anyway, since that building neither had light, nor looked like it would've gotten any at a point in the near future.

Groaning because Angel had disappeared again, and finding him on top of everything else just shifted all of her responsibilities around and delayed her, Buffy got to her feet. Never mind the immense likelihood of his having reverted to being evil, no matter where they'd ended up. She still had to find him, and when she found him, change him back to Angel.

The floor shook beneath her feet, the tremor causing a rattle where the chair rubbed against the desk it tucked into. Another earthquake?

Finding her feet, Buffy bolted to the desk, throwing the chair out from its spot and crouching to duck into the space it'd occupied. The rumbling stopped, and she took a breath, straightening. Nothing major, then, and she was just jumpy. Shaking her head at herself, Buffy ran toward the door.

A dark flash out of the corner of her eye stopped her in her tracks, her hand still on the doorknob. Her gaze darted across the floor, looking for the source—and finding it, easily. Angel's amulet lay near where she had been, the chain snapped, the stone with dirt caked to it like it had been dragged through mud. Buffy scooped it up, flaked some of the dirt off and tucked it into her pocket.

Not bothering to dwell on the ramifications of Angel being both absent and no longer wearing the amulet, Buffy left the office.

The building began trembling again before she'd even reached the stairs, and loud, booming sounds started, coming from a floor somewhere above her. Not an earthquake, then, and it probably hadn't been one before, either. Soon, Buffy was scaling the stairs, stopping at each floor to take a quick look around, and then returning to her ascension.

Completely unsurprisingly, she didn't find anything until she burst through the door to the CEO's floor. And even there, the trouble was out of sight. The black pit on the floor that had dropped her into the Nightmare Fold still hadn't vanished, but it didn't look as though it'd grown or shrunk, either. She bypassed it, ears tuned to anything that would point her in the right direction. The building had stopped shaking, by this point, and a lull in the banging noises she'd been hearing could almost have convinced her that there remained nothing to be found.

_'Almost,'_ she reflected. A familiar shout broke through the silence, giving Buffy both a direction to go in and more knowledge of what to expect when she arrived there.

All the shouting in the world, though, couldn't have prepared her for the picture that met her eyes when she came around the corner.

Spike lay off to one side, crumpled against a wall, probably where he'd landed when he'd shouted. The good thing about vampires, if he still had a body he was just unconscious and she didn't need to worry too much.

Angel—Angelus? She still couldn't be sure—had his arms outstretched above his head, reaching, like he wanted to control or was trying to exert some force over the creature above him.

Creature. Demon. Whatever word she wanted to use for it, either suited. Smoke made up the majority of the shape, floating up near the ceiling and darkening the whole area with a greenish-grey glow, the light coming from the fluorescents forced to filter through the mass of mist. It didn't have eyes that she could see, but Buffy had no doubt that it saw everything in front of it—and maybe behind it and beside it, above it and inside it, too.

It also had a voice, she realised as she got over the initial shock of seeing it, and seemed to be laughing. Original. A malevolent, cackling demon.

Buffy became aware of a pressure on her front, like something small was trying to push her backward—insistent and annoying, but not dangerous, and nothing to worry about, except that she didn't know the source. Then the pressure increased and Buffy grimaced when her amulet flared, the light bright enough to leave a large spot along the bottom of her vision.

"Buffy Summers." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, as stupid as the cliché sounded, especially considering she knew it was coming from the mass of smoke in front of her. But seeing as the thing lacked a visible mouth as well as eyes… well the voice might as well have been projecting straight into her head—which, no thanks.

"Wow, didn't even need to introduce myself, and L.A. being so big, I'm impressed. Can't say I've ever heard of you, though."

The thing laughed again. Angelus—definitely Angelus, Angel would've told her to leave at least twice by now—had a dark look fixed on her that said louder than words that she'd firmly planted herself in the way of whatever his plans were.

"I am the End of Days," the smoke said.

"Is that your legal name?"

The smoke swirled around, and Buffy got the distinct impression that it didn't appreciate her question. She didn't get a chance to entertain a thought beyond that, though, because blue light blocked her vision, and the pressure the demon was exerting on her made it hard to breathe.


	45. Chapter Forty Five

Chapter Forty-Five

Dim pain shot through Buffy when her kneecaps thudded against the carpet. Her vision darkened, blue light from the amulet still filling it, maybe blurred by a lack of oxygen, caused by the force on her chest. But no, that wasn't it. The demon had surged toward her, around her, and the thing dulling and blocking her vision was the body of the thing itself, if smoke could be called a body.

Angelus said something that came muffled to Buffy's ears, and, turning her head, she found tendrils of smoke curling around like ropes of dirty cotton, coiled around and strangling her senses. Swatting at the thing did nothing—it shivered, parting briefly like real smoke before surging back into place. It shouldn't have been solid enough to block her hearing, but clearly it was and that… Buffy didn't know what to make of it.

Feeling, quite consciously, for the power inside her that let her control the amulet, Buffy reached for the light it was emitting. The magic that had cut Angel's soul off from his mind was still active, despite the amulet being in her pocket and not around his neck. She'd expected that. What she hadn't expected was that she'd have to deal with a ghostly, smoky, telepathic demon when she needed all of her attention to figure out how to clean up the mess that the PTB had left to her.

"You're a meddlesome thing," the smoke said. "So tiny, and so powerless, but so meddlesome."

Buffy wrapped her hand around the jewel, blocking the light with her fingers, feeling the heat it gave off as a kind of comforting warmth. Tiny and meddlesome, huh?

"Tell me, Buffy Summers. Do you believe in the task the Powers that Be have set you? Do you believe that your power can disrupt, even possibly hinder, the End of Days?"

Power pulsed out from the amulet, the light spreading between her fingers, as Buffy tried to force it into some sort of shield between herself and the smoke.

"You are way too self-important, especially for a demon that only got through because the Powers let you in," she said.

The smoke recoiled, just a little, giving Buffy a chance to let the blue shield grow up around her ears and in front of her body. She could hear again, the sound of Angelus' shouting flooding into her ears though she hadn't even realised she'd lost the facility.

The demon let out a wordless cry, as though she'd hurt him rather than simply forced him away from her. Buffy got to her feet, knees feeling a little wobbly, body unused to doing anything that didn't only consist of brief bursts of power. Actually maintaining the shield the way it was wouldn't be something she could do for long.

She didn't have to, at least not to keep the demon off. It retreated, pulled back and darkened as it compressed itself into one place, wrapping around Angel until she could only see the top of his head, and his arms and hands, raised again, open to whatever the thing wanted to do with him.

If, by now, he hadn't figured out that something more powerful than him would only use him as a slave and wouldn't augment his powers at all, Buffy didn't think he ever would. A shame she couldn't be perfectly willing to leave him to his fate.

She wanted to turn tail and get somewhere safe, somewhere where she could make sure that she had peace to go about fixing Angel's soul. She didn't have that option. Didn't have that option, because even as she watched, her little shield was slipping and the smoky demon was becoming more and more compact, coiled like a rope around a slightly-more-visible Angelus.

The room brightened without the thing blocking the lights, but the temperature had dropped, and she didn't know if the cause lay in her own lack of energy or some sort of magic the demon emitted. She didn't want to find out. Her amulet flashing, glowing, Buffy pulled Angel's from her pocket as well. She held the black stone up next to her own blue one, focused, remembering the magic she'd given the Claddagh rings, back when she'd rescued Angel from Hell.

That had been a portal, but the foundation was the same—wasn't it? She needed to transfer the power of her own amulet into something else, in this case, Angel's own amulet. They were so similar, at the core, already, that she didn't think it should be very difficult. True, Fake Angel said both amulets were corrupted, that neither of them worked—but she'd used them to return them here from Angel's Nightmare Fold, at least ostensibly. If they'd worked then, doing something she'd merely repeated from before the corruption was supposed to have occurred (and which, despite her having done twice now, was supposed to be impossible) then why shouldn't they work now?

Never mind Buffy not knowing what she was doing; at least not really knowing. She'd been blindly chucking darts at a dartboard and hitting the bulls-eye (about as accurately as she could _actually_ chunk darts blindfolded) this entire time, with some margin for error. Could she afford to mess up this time? Probably not.

Probably not, but even as she watched, Buffy realised what the demon was doing. It wasn't possessing Angel, or disappearing into him or whatever she had thought it would do. It had wrapped itself around his neck, like a noose in fact, coiling into the knot, loop loose for now, tail inching toward the ceiling. You couldn't strangle a vampire. It had to know that.

So she didn't want to know what it thought it was doing, and she wasn't about to let it finish, even if Angelus wasn't struggling, even if he didn't seem to think there was anything wrong.

The amulets flared between her hands, magic pouring from both of them, rising up in little rivulets and wrapping around each other, black and blue. Snaking around each other, the colours poured into the opposite stone, colouring both of them. Buffy pulled the faces apart and stared down at them, finding them identical, black and blue swirls, only differentiated by Angel's being slightly larger, and hers still being bound around her neck.

A weird sensation built in Buffy's feet, warm, like the amulet's power, and she looked down, finding blue and black swirling around her feet. Alarm bells screamed in her head. She'd done something wrong. She'd screwed something up, majorly, because she was messing around with magics and shouldn't have been, because she _didn't do magic._

"Buffy!" Angel shouted.

She looked up, toward him, already suspended by his neck, feet off the floor, hanging from the demon. His eyes were wild, and now, now he was panicking, kicking, scrambling at the grey smoke cord as though he could get it off.

His fingers went right through it.

The panic told her all she needed to know. The panic, and the way he'd shouted her name. Angel was back. Somehow, the swirling magic and the amulets had severed whatever was blocking Angel's mind and his soul. Great.

Too bad it had almost been too late.

Mindless and forgetting, for the moment, that she stood in a pool of magic, Buffy rushed forward. Her right hand swung, something heavy appearing in it, and she hesitated for a moment, glancing over, finding the axe she'd first discovered in the Powers' dimension clenched in her fist, its blade glowing silver. Smiling, though Fake Angel had never suggested to her that it was anything but a normal axe, Buffy threw it.

Just as it had severed the chains that kept Angel bound in Acathla's Hell, the axe flew forward, blade cutting through the demon somewhere above Angel's head, dropping him to the floor. He landed on his hands and knees, head bowed, and the demon spread back out, no longer dark grey, no longer coiled or thin or strong. Smoke.

"Move!" she shouted at Angel, because she couldn't get that far over to pull him out of harm's way herself. "And, catch!" He looked up in time to catch the amulet she threw at him. He squinted at it and she could see him trying to puzzle out the new pattern on the stone, but she didn't have time to explain. She needed to get to her axe.

It had fallen on the floor behind Angel, dropped straight down as if pushed, as soon as it had severed the rope. Served its duty and then lost whatever magic had been powering it. An ordinary axe, which wouldn't help her any more than her fists, or the stakes in her waistband, would against this enemy.

She couldn't possibly summon the energy necessary to do more magic. She didn't know how Willow managed all the time; beyond, of course, being the most powerful witch in the hemisphere, which probably helped considerably. Even her amulet had stopped glowing, as though it detected that she had nothing more to expend, or maybe it figured the job was done. Angel had his soul back, after all, and that had been what was driving Buffy for the past few hours—had it really been less than a day since he'd lost it?

She didn't know if he was in shock, or just hadn't registered yet that danger still hung around, but beyond catching the amulet, he hadn't moved. He hadn't moved, and the demon was starting to recover, surging and roiling above their heads like a building storm cloud.

"Angel!" she shouted, hoping her voice conveyed as much urgency as it needed to, because she didn't have time to _explain_. But Angel had his head bowed again when she looked over at him, and she was halfway to the axe before she realised his body was trembling.

Lousy time for his memories to rush back in and cripple him. Really, really lousy time.

She ducked, skidding under a tendril of smoke that swung at her and rolled, coming up beside the axe and grabbing it. She rose, the spinning axe in her hand fanning and distorting the smoke that tried to wrap around her, moving just a little so that she stood over Angel. The still-spinning axe in her hand didn't do anything to keep the demon away, but at least they were keeping it distracted.

A couple of steps to the side took her to stand over Angel, still whirling the weapon through the air. It wasn't of any use now, but maybe it would be eventually, and anyway, she felt better with something sharp in her hand.

A rush of energy washed over her, and Buffy's attention locked on Angel. He was bent over the amulet, holding it tight in one hand with his head lowered, focused on the stone instead of the fight going on above him. _Hiding_ from the fight going on above him, even if he was caught in the middle of it.

Angel's amulet pulsed again and, again, Buffy felt power rush over her. She did her best to ignore it—whatever Angel was up to didn't help her any, and focusing on it would only take her attention away from the demon above them.

It would be nice to know what he thought he was doing though.

If he was really thinking about it at all.


	46. Chapter Forty Six

Chapter Forty-Six

A surge from the demon, a throwing of power outward that lashed wind against her cheeks and across her forehead and Buffy ducked, then dove. She pushed off against Angel's side, landing on the floor in a sprawl. Angel's grunt from behind her told her she'd been successful in knocking him over, hopefully out of harm's way.

"Angel, I don't know what the hell you think you're doing," she called, springing to her feet and lunging into the mess of demon smoke—distorting it for whatever good it would do them. "But the big molecularly-challenged thing is kinda _priority_ right now!"

The demon chuckled.

Buffy scowled, twirled the axe and swung it, dispersing the bits of it that still spread out toward her. "_Angel!"_ she shouted.

He looked up at her and his eyes were blue. Rich, deep blue like the glowing of the pulsing aura in the air around him, and Buffy glanced down at her amulet and found it glowing the same colour, like the black of his amulet had bled into the pure sky blue of hers and the two colours had finally spiralled together until they'd merged.

Buffy looked from the amulet to the axe in her hand and back again. Magic. There was so much magic here, bleeding through the air and arcing between herself and Angel, and brute force wasn't what it was going to take for them to get out of this situation. Brute force hadn't solved anything for her since this whole mess had begun.

She met Angel's eyes, staring into them, and he blinked and the blue disappeared, replaced with their normal, warm brown. And then she gasped, back bowed forward, falling to hands and knees and bracing herself as power rushed through her.

Her back on fire, Buffy clenched her fists, fighting to regain her feet, to figure out what was going on around her. To comprehend how the demon could have attacked her, gotten such a hold on her without her realizing it was even moving, because there couldn't be any other explanation for the pain wracking her body.

Gritting her teeth and grinding her molars together to fight against the pain, Buffy pushed against the floor, throwing all of her weight against her arms and wishing there were something around to pull herself up with and keep her balance.

Evil had a feeling, and this didn't feel evil. It hurt like hell, and she wanted nothing more than for it to stop, but it didn't feel _evil._ Fighting it, trying to focus on anything _but_ the pain, Buffy straightened her back and, holding herself as straight and stiff as possible because it stopped the pain from shooting through her in waves, she regained her feet.

Posture awkward, stiff as a statue, Buffy stared the demon down. _End of Days _it wanted to call itself, did it?

"You know," Buffy said, the words forced through teeth still clenched as it dawned on her that the pain was surface deep. Angel was staring at her, she thought. Past her, even, and that made her even more sure that whatever was going on with her had something to do with the scars in her back, the writing that the Powers had embedded in her skin. "I've never taken well to things from other dimensions trying to _destroy _mine."

A prophecy was engraved in her skin, a prophecy, and one that gave her _power,_ and the pain that raced through her now, straining every nerve ending, was that power manifesting itself in a way her body just_ didn't_ understand. Buffy maintained that she wasn't magic girl.

But she could be right now.

She closed her eyes, put herself back in the state of the Buffy who had been trained by Fake Angel and the Powers. Thought as hard as she could about what she'd been taught. Fighting, yes, but there had been more, and even if she couldn't find any of it there in her conscious memory, Buffy had some vestigial memories, a few things that she knew that she didn't remember having been taught.

Those few things explained why she'd been successful so far with manipulating the amulets. With the Claddagh rings and bringing Angel back from Acathla's Hell. With breaking whatever weird hold the amulet had put on Angel's soul, and returning it to his body, even if she hadn't done that consciously.

Buffy forced her death grip on the haft of the axe looser. If every spike of pain was actually a spike of magic, of _power_, she could take advantage of that. And who said being magic girl meant she had to start throwing fireballs, or something? The Powers had given her the axe. The Powers knew she was _just a Slayer_. Nothing special until they'd decided she was their "Chosen One" on top of that.

Buffy smiled, though it was probably more of a grimace of pain at this point, and concentrated her pain on the axe.

Nothing happened for a moment, and Buffy felt a desperate, fleeting worry that she'd gotten it all wrong. Then a tiny sparkle of light travelled along the cutting edge of the blade, clinging tight to it and too impossibly focused on it to be anything other than borne of the metal itself.

Sighting where she thought the demon's head might be, and still stiff from the pain—though it was lessening even as the light in the axe grew brighter—Buffy hurled the axe again. Spinning end over end, it flipped through the air. Blazoned with light, the blade sliced through the densest, darkest part of the demon and Buffy caught her balance, locking her knees when her legs started to tremble and threatened to give out.

The demon screamed. It screamed through her head and she clapped her hands to her ears, forcing herself to keep her eyes open against the pain of the sound, vision blurry as her eyes watered. She could make out Angel standing in the same pose, back bent. His eyes were clapped shut, forehead bumpy and ridged, control gone with the pain.

And then it was over. Buffy looked around, forcing herself to concentrate on her breathing, to calm it, because that last spike of power had driven her heart rate up, brought her breath in shuddering gasps. She put her hand against the nearest wall, leaning heavily on it to get her bearings back.

The demon had vanished. The axe lay on the floor, its blade dark and cloudy, the silver and gold inlays chased in tarnish. Buffy picked it up and turned it over in her hand.

"The bloody hell did I miss?"

Buffy looked over at Spike, who was turning his head back and forth, taking in the damage that ensconced the room. She shook her head, tracking Angel's movements and tapping her own forehead, pointedly, when he joined them.

Angel grimaced and his forehead went back to normal.

"I'll take that," Angel said and held out a hand or the axe. "We can run tests on it, figure out—"

"Nuh uh," Buffy said. "I know_ exactly_ where this is going."

Ignoring Angel's frustrated noise and Spike's smug look at his frustration, Buffy made her slow way back to the lobby and the pitch black pit there.

"Buffy, think this through," Angel said.

Buffy rolled her eyes, but didn't even spare a moment to turn and made sure he saw the expression before she hurled the axe into the pit.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then they, all three, were shielding their eyes from the upward blast of light, and alarms were shrieking all through the hallways, and people poured out of offices and gathered at the top of the stairs, audience to the Nightmare Fold entrance exploding and, indeed, folding in on itself.

The pit vanished, charred carpet in its wake, and two tinkling, popping sounds exploded from her and Angel in rapid succession as the amulets fractured and broke, glass falling to the floor.

Angel glared at her and she glared back, even as relief swept through her. If the amulets were gone, this whole mess had to be over. If the amulets were gone, well, she was out of reach of the Powers for now and she sure as hell wasn't going to try and find another way to contact them.

People started to go back to their jobs and Buffy smiled. She could go home now, or at least back to what home was for right now.

"Buffy, I think we need to talk."

Okay, fine. Maybe not _right_ now.


	47. Epilogue

Epilogue

The physical cleanup had been minimal. Wolfram and Hart, as it turned out, had a fantastic budget for removing evidence of demon attacks in its offices, and they had every reason to want to get things back in order. It took a lot of money to keep evil running, apparently.

The emotional cleanup was going to take a hell of a lot longer.

The toll the whole thing had had on Buffy's grey hair count would probably have been a lot less negligible if she hadn't become immortal during it.

Immortal. Buffy stared across the tarmac, watching a plane take off from a distant runway, enjoying just standing and breathing in and out without the pressing feeling of being inside a bastion of evil. She couldn't make Angel get out of Wolfram and Hart. She could try. Had tried. Over and over, but despite everything that had gone down, he refused to listen.

Buffy wasn't surprised, not in the least. Angel still thought he knew better, even with everything that had gone down in the past short while. It didn't matter. She had time to work on him, apparently.

"You don't have to leave," Angel said from just behind her. "But the plane's ready if you're going to."

"I meant what I said."

Angel made an uncomfortable noise in his throat. They'd talked. They'd talked and it had _not_ gone well. Angel had warped the whole thing in his mind, seemed to have forgotten half of what had happened while she'd been in L.A., and had focused a hell of a lot more on their brief little loss-of-control make out session than she had.

"_This doesn't magically fix things, okay? We're not the same people we were. We can work on it. I'm... I want to work on it. But just because we've got this chance… That doesn't mean it's going to work out."_

She'd said the words. She still didn't know if she meant them. And she needed to get back to Scotland.

"Angel," she said, turning to him. He returned the gaze expectantly, but she was seeing double. "And, _you,_" she added to Fake Angel, who was approaching with something flat clutched in his hands.

Fake Angel ignored real Angel, outright stepping around him to stand in front of Buffy, who crossed her arms, popped out a hip and glowered at him.

"I told you I was done."

He nodded. "I'm here to concur with that, not to bring you into anything else," he said with a bit of a bow of his head. "And with another gift." He turned object, a canvas stretched around a frame, over in his hands. Pictured on the other side was a small, oil painting; an exact replica of the massive mosaic she'd seen in the Powers' dimension.

And the light side pressed evenly against the dark, neither encroaching on the other.

Buffy shrugged. "It's what I do," she said, feeling a little uncomfortable because Angel was watching closely and she couldn't figure out how Fake Angel had even gotten here when the amulets were so broken they hadn't even been able to _think_ about putting the pieces back together.

Fake Angel nodded, then leaned in to Angel and said something low in his ear that Buffy couldn't make out. Angel frowned as his doppelganger pulled away, a shocked expression mixed with an emotion Buffy couldn't read spreading across his face, but that she thought might actually be joy.

Fake Angel smiled.

And then he vanished.

"We're going to be _late!"_ Spike shouted from the top of the stairs into the plane.

Buffy waved at him to show she'd heard.

"And now that that's done," she said.

"They fixed it," Angel said, hoarse.

"Huh?"

He shook his head. "Buffy, I know you said… I mean… Can I just…" He stepped toward her, grabbed one of her hands in his. "Can I get a goodbye kiss, at least?"

"Angel…" she said, tugging her hand from his, and on the verge of saying no. He looked miserable, though, and _hell_ if she wasn't going to see him for a while, it couldn't hurt—right?

Her arms were barely up around his neck and their lips met and he crushed her to him, and Buffy was pretty sure she'd had a thought prior to this but it really didn't matter now. This was familiar and safe and as her hands slid down to grip his shoulders she felt a niggling bit of regret at what she was leaving behind. After everything they'd been through, Angel still felt like home.

The broke apart, and Angel had a little bit of a smile twisting his lips, and Buffy couldn't help but return it.

"I have to go," she said.

"I know," he murmured, dropping his hands from her waist.

"Bye," she said, softly, and took two steps back, out of his reach, before turning and making her way to the plane.

She glanced back over her shoulder, just once, to see him waving sadly as she left.

They had time. More than she'd ever wanted.


End file.
